[trotFunky]

I have dabbled with quite a few assembly languages (8051, MIPS, A64 and a bit of x86), the first and second of which I learned in school. To be honest if your teacher is good and the class is well prepared, it should be pretty nice ! As fmax says in their comment it's not that different than learning any other new language : there are some key concepts and ideas which you'll need and the mnemonics, which are the assembly keywords like `ADD` (better to have a searchable reference handy). But all those things can be acquired by experimenting with it and writing simple programs. On top of that, you say the course is on computer architecture so I bet you'll have a very useful overview of all those concepts that are useful for assembly writing ! peterkelly's link looks very useful for that purpose as well.

For that you'll need to setup some sort of environment where you can write, assemble and run your assembly code. jakuboboza has some good ideas to check with previous students to know what can of environment you need.

Eventually you can check an even simpler assembly like the 8051 that has very simple emulators and IDEs available. Or, if you want something a bit more game-y you can look into Zachtronics' puzzle games[0] that often have an assembly-like language and come with a manual, which can help you become familiar with the basic principles. TIS-100 is only assembly writing, Shenzen I/O has a bit of wiring/"electronics" on top and EXAPUNKS makes you "hack" systems using little bots written with this assembly.

I found that knowing a bit of assembly is quite useful and interesting to learn, I hope you'll have fun with it !

[0] : https://www.zachtronics.com/

[Claude_Shannon]

I've played a bit of Shenzhen IO. I quite liked it, but I haven't had mental patience to go very far with that :D

Thank you too