Mnemonic code

A computer programming term

At their most fundamental level, within a register on the CPU for example, computers run instructions in binary form, like this :-

1001110001101101

Now, this may be a perfectly valid instruction for a computer but it is extremely difficult for humans to write computer instructions in this form.

What is needed is a computer programming language that use some more people-friendly commands.

These commands are called 'mnemonic codes'. In other words a code that is readily memorised by human programmers.

A collection of menomic codes together form the 'assembly language' for a specific CPU. Each CPU such as the Athlon or Intel chips have their own assembly language.

Example

Mnemonic code	Operation
LDA {value}	Load the Accumulator with a given value
STO E,A	Store the content of register E in register A

 

To create the final program, the assembly language commands are translated into binary (or machine code) by a piece of software called a translator.

2020-10