Have you ever thought that missing a public account article is just a trivial matter? But for RollerCoaster Tycoon players, missing the push means not being able to witness a game tapestry woven from shed cat burrs. When you scroll away inadvertently, what you may miss is not an ordinary article, but a programmer using assembly language to carve out a miniature theme park on the chip.
From cat hair to code persistence
In 1999, "RollerCoaster Tycoon" came out. Behind this simulation game that fascinated countless players, there was a lonely developer, Chris Sawyer. He had no team, no engine, and only a computer. With the pursuit of exploring the limits of possibility, Sawyer used x86 assembly language to build the entire game world one by one. Every pixel in the game was placed by himself.
At the time, this choice was almost crazy, like weaving a tapestry out of shed cat hair. Sawyer had to handle the work of every transistor. However, he knew the limits of the chip. Because he understood the boundaries, he was able to squeeze out every inch of performance, causing rickety rides to appear on the screen alongside hungry tourists.
Assembly language survival rules
Assembly language is the lowest level language of the computer, almost corresponding to machine code one by one. It does not use syntax that approximates human thinking like Python or C++, but directly controls registers and memory addresses. Programmers must be as familiar with the physical design of the CPU as they are with the palm of their hand.
Who can replace boring binary with a mnemonic like MOV for the first time? It was Catherine Booth who made this possible after she created the first assembly language in the 1940s! The meaning of understanding the chip itself and learning assembly is equivalent to understanding, and more importantly, knowing what it cannot do and what it can achieve! The code used for the Apollo 11 moon landing was written in assembly language, and it continues to shine in the history of technology to this day!
My college compilation time
I took the x86 assembly course in college. At that time, my classmates were writing boring Java enterprise-level applications, but I was addicted to this logic game. Each instruction was directly connected to the switch of the circuit. Although assembly is extremely prone to errors, when you see the value of the register changing, you can understand the cause of the error.
This kind of proficiency is fragile. For example, after learning Arabic in Beirut, you need to learn the local dialect again when you arrive in Khartoum. When the chip switches from x86 direction to Arm direction, the assembly language must be restarted. However, I am enjoying the feeling of being able to talk directly to the hardware, as if I am really controlling the flow of electricity.
The modern resurrection of the compilation
Nowadays, when coding on a daily basis, it no longer makes sense to use assembly. The abstraction layer of high-level languages has improved development efficiency hundreds of times. However, in 2023, engineers from a Chinese company went deep into the bottom layer of the chip and used assembly language to compress the data from 32 bits to 8 bits, sacrificing accuracy in exchange for an amazing efficiency improvement.
What is even more shocking and staggering is that after the researchers taught the AI to learn to master x86 assembly, they allowed it to improve and optimize the sort function in the C language that has not changed for decades. The AI made jumps that went against human intuition, moved mysteriously and elusively between registers, and in the end actually reduced one step. This optimization is now used countless times in MBTI career tests every day, but few people know that it comes from the cross-border cooperation between assembly and AI.
The limits of hardware and human control
Sawyer recently conducted home automation experiments on the Raspberry Pi, controlling lights and temperature sensors. He noticed that there was some lag in the display, and his first reaction at this time was that it would be much better if he could rewrite the code. Unfortunately, the Arm assembly used by the Raspberry Pi is different from the x86 he is familiar with, so the veteran programmer has no choice but to accept the hardware limitations.
But it is precisely this impulse to rewrite that shows human beings' desire to control machines. We create these complex systems, and even as they grow beyond comprehension, we still have ways to make them work better. From the pixelated world of "RollerCoaster Tycoon" to the efficiency revolution of AI models, assembly language has always reminded us that the bottom layer is the source of power.
The code world behind the stars
Looking back on the matter of adding a star to an official account, it seems to be just a simple subscription action. However, every time you receive a push notification, behind it is a large amount of code shuttling back and forth between the server and the phone chip. These codes may be written in Python, or compiled in C++, but they must eventually be converted into assembly instructions that the chip can understand.
Those games that make you addicted to them, and those algorithms for accurate push, are all built on programmers' knowledge of hardware. Just as Sawyer used assembly to create a roller coaster, today's developers are building digital realms in a variety of languages. But few people will tell you how many MOV instructions your handheld chip runs at the moment you press the star icon.
Have you ever thought about how many programmers and hardware are hidden in the bottom layer of the apps you use every day? Please share the wonderful coding experiences you have witnessed in the comment area, like and forward, so that more people can see another aspect of the digital world.
