Could describe machine programs as a sequence of hex digits, e.g.

Address   Content
0x100000  0x3c041001
0x100004  0x34020004
0x100008  0x0000000c
0x10000C  0x03e00008

Assembly languages provide a symbolic way:

• giving machine code instructions using mnemonics rather than hex codes
• refering to registers using either numbers or names
• associating names to memory addresses