Basic integer arithmetic – add, subtract, negate, multiply, multiply-and-add, and divide – in their many variations. With some catches for those more used to high-level languages.
Apple silicon
Close to the top of my shortlist of new features in the next Apple Silicon Macs is that kernel panics become a thing of the past.
Explaining the LDR family of instructions for loading registers, MOV for moving one register to another, STR for storing to memory, and SXTx/UXTx for filling a register with smaller data types.
Management of kernel extensions has changed significantly in Big Sur and later. This overview for users contrasts kexts with user-level extensions which are replacing them.
How conditional branching can slow modern processors down badly, comparing assembly code with that generated by Apple’s Swift compiler, and some puzzles.
A strange volume named xART or xarts, secure memory management, and long random numbers: how they fit together to protect against replay attacks.
Terminal in Recovery on an M1 Mac has access to many valuable command tools, including USB-C diagnostics,options otherwise unavailable in csrutil, and more.
How to implement conditional looping such as for and while, and how to break out of a loop. Complete with chart of four conditional idioms.
Install macOS in Recovery can only install one version, which probably isn’t the one you want. How can you get an earlier version installed, then?
WWDC this year again featured a session on notarization. Here’s a summary of its status in Big Sur, and details of what’s next.
The Eclectic Light Company 