An Asm Reality | Devpost

Inspiration

Throughout the history of programming there has always been a barrier between humans and computers in terms of understanding on another. For example, there is no one simple way which we can both communicate but rather there are so called programming languages which we can understand and then the binary language which the computer understands. While it is close to impossible to eliminate that right now, we want to use the middle ground of the Assembly Language in order to educate prorgammers on how the computer attempts to understand us.

What it does

When programmers develop code and press run, they just see an output dialog with their result. Through An Asm Reality, we allow users to develop code and understand how the computer converts that into Asm (assembly language) by allowing users to enter a virtual world using an Oculus Rift. In this world, they are able to see two different windows, one with the the code they have written and one with the assembly language the computer has generated. From there they are able to press on text in one area and see what it relates to in the other window. As well as that, a brief description of each area will pop up as the user views specific lines of code enlightening even the most advanced programmers on how assembly language decodes actual written code.

How I built it

This was built using Unity which allowed for the creation of the virual world. Along with that languages such as Python and C# were used. Lastly we used the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion to bring this idea into our reality.

Challenges I ran into

Our group was very unfamiliar with assembly language and therefore being able to understand how to convert programmed code into assembly language was a huge barrier as this type of reverse engineering has very limited resources and thus it came down to having to do tons of readings.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We are proud of the fact that we were able to use Oculus Rift for the first time for all of the group members and sufficiently program the device using Unity.

What I learned

Through this adventure we learned: how to interpret assembly language (or at least the basics of it), how to use linux (gcc and gdp), how to program scripts in C#, how to send information through a network in order to transfer files effortlessly, and lastly we learned how to work with the Unity environment along with Leap-Motion.

What's next for An Asm Reality

We plan to make this application more complex where individuals are able to using multiple languages apart from C and visualize the assembly version of the code. Also we plan on making the UI more user friendly and more informative to allow others to educate themselves in a more interesting manner.