ASTRA-256 Assembler

First of all, thanks for the native Linux support. Ok, so what do we have here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WaYYNUCWMY That's not the Assembly most people expect with all these MOVs and MULs. It's inspired by Altair 8800, LGP-30, and PDP-11, machines from somewhere in the 1978-1990 era. It can be interesting for people who like to tamper with such museum stuff. It kinda reminds me of Zach games such as TES-100 and Shenzhen I/O. But there are no missions (yet?), so you just explore the device using the manual (ENG/RUS/UA, by the way) both PDF and in-game text, without "anyone holding your hand", as some people like to say. This is quite an interesting process by itself. I'll definitely recommend this for anyone interested in programming games. This is one of these sadly few "niche" products which require some thinking to be interesting, instead of just feeding you with "content". I do miss some code examples though. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=207...

[i]Disclaimer: I have had previous assembler language programming experience (hobby) when I owned a TRS-80 Model I computer in the 1980s. This review will be based on that experience.[/i] TL;DR This is a toy for those who have experience writing assembler language programs, and a very well done design of one too. Having said this, if you've never programmed before, or even if you have but use high-level programming languages, the toy can be frustrating. [hr][/hr] This software is basically a programming sandbox. It's a virtual machine based on the Altair 8800 microcomputer of the 1970s. This was a primitive ancestor to the modern laptops and desktops we take for granted where information was presented in blinking coloured lights and sounds. It also used assembler language, which is hexadecimal op code and the native language microcomputers understand (as opposed to C, BASIC, and Python). In it, you write assembler language programs within a 256 byte (not gigabyte, not megabyte, not ...

This program is very confusing. And the instruction manual for this program is extremely useless. What is curious is that, on the website it says: "We hope that for schoolchildren and students our calculator will be interesting." And "And the" children "of older age, this toy is just a pleasure." I am an adult and, I understand assembly language and, I think this program is confusing so, how would it be interesting for a child? How would a child think this "toy" is a pleasure? I looked for some contact from the creators of this program and, I didn't find it. I wrote on the forum and no one answered. So, I will ask for my money back.

People who like Zachlike games and/or assembly programming will find this pretty cool. Can't wait to see where the dev takes it in terms of tutorials and puzzles, but for now we have an awesome 8-bit computer to mess around with and get a taste of what it was like to program in the old days of computing. The world needs more games/emulators like this.

Architecture is confusing for x86 users but still a solid game.

I'd say this is a terribly designed game, but it's hard for me to tell what the developer's goal was. Maybe they were trying to make a confusing and seemingly pointless game with terrible instructions. If so, mission accomplished. There is no tutorial. There are pages like "MANUAL" and "INSTRUCTION SET" which bring you to pages that contain words that are, as far as I'm aware, in English. However, speaking the language that is conveyed on those pages serves little value because they aren't in any order or context from which I can infer useful information. I wanted to like this game because I like supporting small developers, and because those aforesaid developers seem to indicate that this game has educational value. However the only educational value I derived from this game was knowing how the inside of my skull looks due to rolling my eyes back so far. Make a tutorial that explains how to play and what the goal is and I'll gladly consider repurchasing this game (even at f...

At the moment the learning curve is quite high and there isn't a lot to do. The best thing to do right now is go to the workshop and subscribe to a few example programs so you can run them and see what happens. It's all still a bit buggy right now but you can't blame the developer for that. It's called early access for a reason. All in all, I'm really looking forward to seeing the progress as time goes on. It shows potential and it's kind of neat to be able to interact with a very old-school virtual computer.

I'm not a programmer as such. I'm only getting started in it as a hobby, and I find it very fascinating. Professionally, the only "programming" that I do is with industrial PLC's. While this software may not represent specific real world hardware, it's a great example of the limitations within which programmers had to work back in the day. It's a real eye-opener to be able to see the relationship between the instructions that you punch in, and their corresponding values in the processor's memory, and to be able to follow it step by step using the debug function. It's also a good exercise in working through the differences in writing code in a new language, as well as figuring out how to work with i/o that you are unfamiliar with. Well done!

I wouldn't say this is ideal for somebody who has no experience with programming at all, but if you understand the basics enough to be able to write a simple program in any language and understand fundamentals like binary, hex, conditional statements, etc. You should have no problem getting a handle on Astra-256. Even without experience like that, the manual makes it very easy to understand the language and how to input and manipulate data in Astra. I'm sure with a bit of trial and error, it wouldn't take much for somebody new to assembly, or fairly new to programming in general to write simple programs like writing data to memory, then performing math or logical operations on said data. And if you're looking to learn any sort of assembly language, this would be a great place to start! It's a very simple language and a very simple system that it's implemented on. Easily the most simple form of assembly I've ever used. But that's not to say it isn't also quite versatile. Especially wi...

Should include an introductory tutorial on how to start using it as it took me a bit with the help of ChatGPT and reading the workshop stuff to figure it out i have prior coding experience but this is low as you can go the manual i admit i didnt really fully read it but you could make it easier for folks to dive in