This book has a lot of useful information on low level stuff. There are chapters on Disks, Video and Bios/dos services.
Some of the material belong in a history book but I found the book very useful in my research on operating systems.
If you don't mind learning 16 bit assembly language, you should consider this book. However it helps if you know a bit of assemly language before you attempt to read this book.
A good introduction is "Assembly Langauge Step by Step" (if you dont mind authors who keep telling boring stories in between the material).

I got this book when I was twelve or thirteen and I only knew how to code BASIC at the time... I must admit that at first it was a bit overwhelming; however, after reading this book I must say I had become a competent assembly language programmer. This book is superb, PACKED with info, and great for beginners.

If you know some high level language (concepts, structure, procedures, functions) and have a basis in assembler (know what mov means) Then this book can be of value. Has a lot of good examples for each subject covered. Covers a subject that I don't see covered much in alot of the assembler books I have read, writing macros (like writing a function in a high level language, sort of). I would recommend these books in order: ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE STEP BY STEP, REVOLUTIONARY GUIDE TO ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE, MASTER CLASS-ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE.

If I had to rate this book in 2 words it would simply be "BUY NOW!" This book teachers everything that you need to be an intermediate programmer (unfortuanately the interrupts are only for DOS not linux or unix or mac or so on) but it is a great book. Comes with complete source code but no compiler.

I've been programming in assembly language (among other languages) since 1980, but just recently I decided I needed a book to brush up on some of the aspects of programming in assembly language on the 80x86 chip set. I bought this book because I felt like out of the books I reviewed, it was the easiest to read and the most well laid out in general. It also was very complete.

The book covers most aspects of assembly language and how it can be used on the IBM PC and compatible computers. It details system (BIOS) calls available on the PC to the assembly language programmer and gives you a good working knowledge of what you are up against when programming in assembly language. However, as the author states up front, this book does not cover a few of the more advanced features of assembly language on the PC (protected memory modes, 32 bit instructions, etc). With that said, I don't think this should really be viewed as much of a short coming. In many cases, these commands aren't often used anyway and certainly their absence in this text doesn't detract from what this books sets out to teach you.

The book (and one of the main reasons I bought it) also has a very nicely laid out reference section that clearly explains each instruction (aka the commands) available to the programmer in the Intel chip set.

However, as good as this book is for someone wanting to get up to speed on assembly language, I would caution prospective buyers against assuming this is a book designed for the "total novice" when it comes to assembly language programming. Even if you already know how to program in a language such as Basic or Perl, programming in assembly language can sometimes be quite a change of gears in thinking. There are no "Print" commands in assembly language :-) There are macro functions in MASM 6, but at the same time when you program in assembly language, you largely are dealing directly with memory locations, registers and the core instruction set in the CPU. You have to think in terms of binary numbers, and raw data to a large degree.

All that is fine if you already have a broad understanding of what's going on in assembly language to begin with. However, if you don't (i.e. if you are a total novice to the world of assembly language programming), then there is a chance this book may leave you a little confused at the start.

When I first taught myself how to program in assembly language, it was at the age of about 15. At that time, I had no concept of what binary was, nor did I have any idea how memory locations, let alone how registers of a CPU fit into the big picture. Fortunately, the book I used to teach myself started from square one and assumed you knew nothing about binary or anything else. While those chapters were very hard to get a handle on initially, looking back they were very important to understanding the overall concept of how assembly language functions.

Again, as good as this book is, my fear is that someone starting at square one might find themselves feeling a little left out in the cold by the author if they don't already have a solid understanding of what a High and Low byte are, or if they have no concept of what a Most Significant Bit is.

In my view, the addition of a chapter on "what is going on here with assembly language and the binary numbering system" might be very helpful for those very who are new to the world of assembly language programming. Nonetheless, this is a very well laid out book and certainly should be part of any book shelf owned by anyone who has designs on programming in assembly language (which of course is the only real programming language - just kidding :-)