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# Introduction
There are many commonly-used PDP-8 assemblers, several of which we ship with the PiDP-8/I software distribution; there are more available elsewhere. How does a programmer discriminate among them, other than to carefully read each one's manual, then spend several months writing code in it to develop a feel for what it is like? They cannot all be equal, else they'd be interchangeable and you'd just pick one based on what was available. One cannot be clearly better for all things, else everyone would just use that.
This article is a **preliminary** survey of these assemblers with an eye toward listing the key distinctions among them.
This article is a **preliminary** survey of these assemblers with an eye toward listing the key distinctions among them. It is modeled on a birder's field guide: having read through this document, a reader should be able to recognize which assembler(s) are likely to be able to process a given piece of assembly code. Eventually, we hope that a programmer beginning a PDP-8 assembly language project should be able to make a sensible selection based on the information in this document, though that ambition likely exceeds this document's current scope.
When multiple versions are available, our commentary applies to the version currently in the PiDP-8/I software distribution, if present, or the latest available version of the assembler if it is hosted externally.
When multiple versions of a given assembler are available, our commentary applies to the version currently in the PiDP-8/I software distribution, if present, or the latest available version of the assembler if it is hosted externally.
## Criteria
This survey does not include every PDP-8 assembler, on purpose. This is not a comprehensive survey, it is not a genealogy project, and it is not an advocacy platform. Our purpose here is to list useful options for the practicing PDP-8 assembly language programmer.
The assemblers listed meet these criteria:
* It is readily available online.
* It offers a valuable capability to the end user:
* It is the back end assembler for some other language which is itself important.
* It is required to build an important body of code which is readily available online.
* It is the best available option for its primary platform, or it is an important secondary option.
* When it is a member of a family or series of assemblers, it is the latest option for its platform.
* When it is a member of a family or series of assemblers, it is the latest available option for its platform.
That list is not intended to be normative or complete, just informative: if an assembler fails to meet all of those criteria, that is likely why it is not listed here.
Think of this survey as the PDP-8 assembly language version of a birder's field guide: having read through this document, a reader should be able to recognize which assembler(s) are likely to be able to process a given piece of assembly code. Eventually, we hope that a programmer beginning a PDP-8 assembly language project should be able to make a sensible selection based on the information in this document, though that ambition likely exceeds this document's current scope.
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