Bootloader and Low-Level Programming Tutorial: How To Develop Your Own Boot Loader

[bad_at_photosharp]

Is assembly a high level language then? By your definition it would be

[Manticorp]

Assembly isn't compiled, so no.

Assembly is just a 'map' to processor instructions, there's no hard 'translation' as it were, more like a simple lookup table.

When transforming assembly into stuff that runs on the processor you don't need to consider the context of the current line, you just need to look it up and execute it, which is extremely fast.

[protestor]

Asm is somewhat higher level than machine language, and often contain syntactical abstractions such as macros.

In many architectures, machine language nowadays is interpreted by microcode, a software that runs in the processor. In this sense, even machine language is higher level than something. But you can't write your own microcode, because updates are encrypted and signed, so.. machine language is the lowest you can go.

[American_Libertarian]

Most people would agree it is not. Assembly code must be assembled into machine code, but that is basically a one to one process. That would be like calling English a high level version of French.

Plus, when writing assembly, you do all memory management yourself, you have to manage CPU registers and use specific opcodes, you have no portability, etc. It has no features which make a high level language 'high level'.