The 80C188 is not a particularly good microprocessor to start learning assembly language.

The 8051 is a good investment of your time to learn. If you like doing complex algorithms and wizard code (but you are just starting) then the Z180 is better.

There are problems in learning on the 8051 but its commercially useful - a marketable skill. The language and architecture is somewhat comvoluted to the eyes of the beginner, experts see the wisdom of it.

When I teach 8051 assembly language, I restrict the opcode set that can be used until the fundemental skills are learned. Its hard starting out when you can't tell the abstractly useful opcodes from the everyday sort.

aka j