SPARC Assembly/Introduction

What This Book is About

This book is about programming SPARC Assembly language. This book will cover basics of the assembly language (instructions, syntax, etc), but will also discuss more advanced topics as well. In short, this book is attempting to be a complete SPARC reference, for readers of all skill levels.

Two versions of the architecture are currently in use, SPARCv8 and SPARCv9. Most programs written for one of them should work on the other, since SPARCv9 is backward compatible with SPARCv8 and SPARCv8 is upward compatible with SPARCv9. The main differences lie at the system-programming level, and therefore do not concern user programs. More information can be found on SPARC.

Who This Book is For

Because this book contains both low-level information, as well as deeper advanced material, this book is for people of all skill levels. Beginners to SPARC will find this to be an excellent introduction and teaching aide to the language. Advanced users will (hopefully) find this to be a valuable quick reference. Readers are assumed to have at least some background in assembly language programming, but it is not strictly required.

How This Book is Organized

This book is ordered according to ascending skillset. That is, the easiest material is presented first, and the more advanced material is presented towards the end. Beginners, and people who are only looking to learn the basics of SPARC assembly need only read the first 2 sections. Later sections are targeted towards people who are doing advanced projects in SPARC, such as the creation of operating system kernels, and SPARC Assemblers.

Where to Go From Here

This book attempts to be a complete reference to SPARC programming. As such, there are no wikimedia projects (actual or planned) that will continue the discussion of this material any further. However, the reader may benefit from some of the other materials available, such as the other assembly languages discussed, and the various high-level languages with entire books devoted to them.

Additional information can be obtained from the following links :

• www.sparc.org : The official SPARC reference, containing SPARCv8 and SPARCv9 architectures specifications,
• SPARC : Wikipedia's page about SPARC,
• Microprocessor Design : for a general discussion about microprocessor design.