assembler
(əˈsɛmblə(r))
[f. assemble v.1 + -er1; cf. OF. assembleor, -eur, n. of agent f. assembler: see assemble v.1]
One who assembles.
1. One who brings together, collects, or convenes.
| 1635 D. Person Varieties i. Introd. 2 The builder of cities, assembler of men. 1780 Burke Refl. Exec. Wks. IX. 273 None of..the assemblers of the mob..have been convicted. |
2. One who takes part in an assembly;
e.g. a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines.
| 1647 J. Birkenhead Assembly-man in Harl. Misc. (1745) V. 94/4 Yet it is some Relief to a sequestered Person to see two Assemblers snarl for his Tithes. a 1660 Hammond To Cheynel Wks. I. 193 (R.) Your confession of faith which you say shall be published by your assemblers. 1710 Shaftesbury Charac. iv. §3 (1737) I. 148 If they can produce..Visionary Assemblers to attest a story of a Witch upon a Broomstick. |
3. One who assembles a machine or its parts.
| 1898 Cricket & Football Field 1 Oct. 3 ‘Assemblers’—men who buy [cycle] frames..then put in whatever fittings they or their customers may be inclined to use. 1908 Daily Chron. 21 Feb. 10/6 Arc lamp assemblers. 1909 Ibid. 21 Aug. 6/6 One cannot get such a cycle ready made, but a good assembler can build it up. |
4. The mechanism of a linotype machine which assembles the matrices and space bands to form a line of type. Also
attrib.| 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXXIII. 523/2 They are set up in proper order in the assembler block. 1905 C. T. Jacobi Printers' Handbk. (ed. 3) 93 When the line is accidentally overset..it is necessary to remove some of the matrices from the assembler. 1908 J. S. Thompson Mechanism of Linotype (ed. 3) ii. 15 The assembler shute spring..should be curved so as to tend to throw the bottom of the matrix towards the assembler wheel. 1925 J. R. Rogers Linotype Instruct. Book 1 Beginning with the touch of a finger upon a Keybutton..a matrix is released and falls by gravity upon a constantly running belt which delivers the matrix into the ‘assembler’. |
5. Computing.
a. A program for converting instructions written in low-level symbolic code or assembly language into machine code.
Cf. compiler 1 b.
| 1959 Jrnl. Assoc. Computing Machinery II. 139 Instead of absolute binary output, this assembler produces a SQUOZE deck. 1967 Computer Group News Jan. 4/2 An assembler operates almost on a symbol-by-symbol basis. 1970 O. Dopping Computers & Data Processing xix. 305 The difference between a compiler and an assembler is explained. 1975 Sci. Amer. May 38/3 An assembly-language program must be translated into machine language before it is committed to a memory; this conversion is accomplished by an assembler, which checks the assembly-language program for certain types of errors and, if none are found, produces the desired machine-language code. 1979 D. R. Hofstadter Gödel, Escher, Bach (1980) x. 291 This program, called an assembler, accepts mnemonic instruction names, decimal numbers, and other convenient abbreviations which a programmer can remember easily, and carries out the conversion into the monotonous but critical bit-sequences. 1984 J. Hilton Choosing & using your Home Computer 165/2 Assembler packages will usually only work with a disk drive. |
b. = assembler language in sense 6.
| 1979 Sci. Amer. Apr. 75/2 Simple languages called assemblers replace the binary notation with symbols that are more concise and more easily remembered. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 238/3 People who are not familiar with assembler should consult a book before they start. |
6. Special
Combs.:
assembler code,
language Computing = assembly language s.v. assembly IV;
assembler program Computing = sense 5 above.
| 1975 Austral. Computing Jrnl. July 78/1 Another potential hazard occurs when the programmer writes structured source code and the compiler generates unstructured *assembler code. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 230/3 The first listing is the assembler code. |
| 1968 New Scientist 11 Jan. 79 The makers offer a library of programs to go with it [sc. a desk computer], including..an *assembler language, and a general mathematics library. 1979 W. S. Caelli Microcomputer Revolution p. xii, Till recently most microcomputer programs had to be written in assembler language. |
| 1977 Sci. Amer. Sept. 152/3 The translation is done by the computer itself with an ‘*assembler’ program. 1985 Personal Computer World Feb. 39/1 (Advt.), Integral linker allows assembler programs to be linked together. |
| 1980 C. S. French Computer Sci. xxv. 189 The manufacturer provides a program called an assembler or assembler program which translates the assembly language into machine code. |