Think of assembly language as an arcane text on a stone tablet from an ancient civilization that holds the secret to the fight against evil ghosts in the machine. As you might imagine, before incanting any of your own creations, you first have to understand the alphabet symbols and essential vocabulary of this language. Once you learn to decipher the existing codes, you can be confident about understanding the semantics of what is already written. Thereafter, etching your own ideas will require more investment of your time to understand the nuances of this language and that will happen only when you start writing in code. A little goes a long way, and getting your hands dirty is the primary way that learning can occur.

Let's write a basic console-based C program in Visual Studio C++ 2008 Express Edition, which is a free download from Microsoft, and compile it. Create a new Win32 Console project, type the following code in its entirety, and press F5 to run it. We will...