x86-64 Documentation

x86-64 is the instruction set most desktop and server processors run. It has sixteen 64 bit general purpose registers, memory addressed as one flat space, and an instruction for almost everything of around 2600 mnemonics.

Programs in asm-editor are written in NASM syntax, assembled by the NASM assembler, and run by blink, which emulates a Linux program. So a program starts at _start, its code goes in section .text and its data in section .data, and it reaches the outside world through the syscall instruction. It ends by calling syscall 60. A program that runs off the end of its own code executes whatever bytes follow in memory.