[prog] C help - assembly and ports

[Laylaa]

Hi all

I was hoping I could get some help.
I've found myself teaching a course on C when most of my C was self taught.
Unfortunately there's a couple of units I don't know much (well, I'd
prefer to say, I don't know anything) about.

I was hoping somebody could direct me to appropriate tutorials or
resources so I can quickly teach myself so I can teach my students.
Well, it's highly unlikely we'll get to those topics but I did promise
that if we didn't have time, that I'd make up instructive handouts for
them, sample programs etc, so that they can figure it out if they so
desire.

I don't know anything about  Embedded Assembly Language. I did do some
assembly language programming once upon a time on x86 architecture and
I know that you use the asm keyword in C to include  it...but I'm not
sure how/why/what I'd do with the assembly language in my program. Oh,
I don't know if it's relevant that they use Microsoft Visual C++
compilers.

The other topic is port access, that is writing programs that do I/O
to ports. This I have no clue about. It's stuff I wouldn't mind
learning but I have no idea how etc. I barely remember the difference
between parallel and serial ports.

Anywayz, I hope this is the appropriate list and I hope somebody can
help/point me somewhere helpful. I did try googling but sometimes it's
hard when you're not too sure what you're looking for. I will also try
looking through the archives...but, are they searchable?

thanks, Laylaa