Calculator in x86 assembly (v1.4)

Summary

Error-tolerant, memory-safe, single-digit signed calculator in x86 Assembly (NASM). System-call based I/O, manual memory management, custom macros for input validation, and full runtime error checking. Project served as a crash-course in low-level programming, debugging with GDB, and transitioning from relying on tutorials/GPT to generate all the code to writing good quality (ish) assembly from scratch.

Introduction

• This is a simple calculator that is written in x86 assembly! My first mini-project to practice assembly.
• Development: 2025-06-08 - 2025-06-29 (Currently paused)
• Version developed: 2025-06-16 - 2025-06-28
• Can handle 1 digit signed numbers (except for division, for which it should be unsigned)

Packages

To run the app, make sure you have the following packages installed:

1. nasm – Assembler for compiling x86 assembly source files into object code.
2. gcc – C compiler toolchain (provides the linker and standard libraries; ld is used indirectly or via binutils).
3. make – Build automation tool used to run the Makefile targets like make, make run, etc.
4. gdb – GNU Debugger (optional) – useful for stepping through and debugging your assembly code.

For Debian/ Ubuntu-based systems:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nasm gcc make gdb

For Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S nasm base-devel gdb

Running the app

This app should be ran on x86 architecture. It will not run on ARM machines (e.g., Silicon Macs). To run the app simply:

1. Type make to assemble the source code in the terminal (make sure you are in the correct directory)
2. Type make run to run the program
3. To debug the program using GDB use make debug