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16 CHAPTER 3 - ASMHELP We are now going to introduce both the 8086 registers and a program for looking at them. You are going to get information flying at you at a rapid pace, so read both this and the next chapter carefully and slowly. REGISTERS The 8086 has a number of registers. Remember, registers are places for storing data that are internal to the 8086 chip. They are much faster, but there are very few of them. There are 6 registers that you can use for addition and subtrac- tion of word (2 byte) sized numbers, as well as logical opera- tions on word (2 byte) numbers or data. These registers are AX, BX, CX, DX, SI, DI. In addition, there is a register which works the same way, but has a special function in all high-level languages (Basic, Pascal, C, etc.). This is BP, the base pointer. There is one more register that performs the same operations as the above seven, but it is RESERVED for special use and should never be used for anything. It is called SP (the stack pointer). There are 4 registers that tell the 8086 which memory segments you are in. They just sit there and help the 8086 find things in memory. You will learn how they work later. They are CS, DS, SS, ES. (That is Code Segment, Data Segment, Stack Segment and Extra Segment respectively). There is the flags register which contains all the information the 8086 needs to evaluate its state. We will learn about this later. The flags register has no name, and there are machine instructions for manipulating individual flags in the register. Finally, there is IP, the instruction pointer, which points to the machine instructions. You have no direct access to this, which is good because you would screw it up for certain. The 8086 handles the IP automatically and correctly. One word (two bytes or 16 bits) is the largest piece of data that the 8086 can handle naturally. It is possible to handle larger things, but we do it through software (which is slower), not hardware (which is faster). Sometimes we want to handle things one byte at a time as when we work with characters. The 8086 gives us this possibility by letting us divide the AX, BX, CX, and DX registers into an upper half and a lower half. For any or all of these registers, we can replace one 2 byte register by two 1 byte registers. The data in the full register stays the same, but we can look at each half. The two parts of AX are called AH (for A high) and AL (for A low). |------AX------| 0000000000000000 |--AH--||--AL--| Chapter 3 - ASMHELP.OBJ 17 _______________________ This is the 16 bit binary number 0 in the AX register. Using AX allows us to manipulate all 16 bits. Using AH allows us to manipulate the upper 8 bits (without affecting the lower 8 bits), and using AL allows us to manipulate the lower 8 bits without affecting the upper 8 bits. Similarly, for BX we have BH, BL, for CX we have CH, CL, and for DX we have DH, DL. SHOW_REGS We have named all the registers, now let's take a look at them. Included in the module asmhelp.obj is a program called show_regs. It shows all the above registers on the top 10 lines of your screen and allows you to enter data normally underneath. When you call show_regs, it puts the current value of all the registers on the screen. Those values stay on the screen until the next call - i.e. the program does not change what is on the screen even though the registers may be changing value. You need to call show_regs every time that you want to see the current values of the registers. The first time you call show_regs, it clears the screen so you should call it right at the beginning of the program in order to initialize the screen. This time we want temp2.asm for a template; we will call this program prog3.asm, so make a copy of temp2.asm and give it the new name. Let's take a look at it. The only differences are (1) there are a lot more programs in the EXTRN statements and (2) in the data segment DATASTUFF there are these definitons: ax_byte db 2 bx_byte db 2 cx_byte db 2 etc. These will be used for show_regs later, but you need to learn a few assembler instructions first. Here's our next program: TEMP2.ASM + + + + + + + + START CODE BELOW THIS LINE call show_regs label_one: call get_hex call show_regs call get_num call show_regs jmp label_one + + + + + + + + END CODE ABOVE THIS LINE The PC Assembler Tutor 18 ______________________ That's all the program does. It asks for a number, then calls show_regs to show us what is in the registers. Note that one of the numbers is hex while the other number is decimal. Compile this, and link it with >link prog3+\asmhelp ; and we're ready to go. The program reads information in the computer to find out what kind of monitor you have and where the screen output goes. It then puts the register information on the top lines. If it doesn't appear there, we have a screwup somewhere. The text should appear in black and white, but if you have a color monitor you can make it a blue background with white letters.{1} *********************** SCREEN SHOT *************************** AX 19825 SI 00000 BX 00000 DI 00256 CX 00255 BP 17113 DX 02596 SP 00508 CS 0AA4H DS 0A54H ES 0A24H SS 0A34H IP 0018H OF DF IEF TF SF ZF AF PF CF + x + x E COUNT 00003 ----------------------------------------------------------------- The PC Assembler Helper Version 1.0 Copyright (C) 1989 Chuck Nelson All rights reserved. Enter a two byte hex number 4df9 Enter any decimal number +19825 Enter a two byte hex number ***************************************************************** This is how the screen looks after entering first a hex number, then a decimal number. The numbers in the registers will probably be different for you. Note that AX contains the last number that was entered. On the left side you will see the AX, BX, CX and DX ____________________ 1 To make a blue background and white letters, insert the code "call set_blue" before the FIRST "call show_regs". i.e.: call set_blue call show_regs label_one: etc. This only works if it is allowed by the video board. Chapter 3 - ASMHELP.OBJ 19 _______________________ registers. For the time being, these registers will display unsigned numbers. On the right are the SI, DI, BP and SP registers. They are also unsigned numbers for the moment. Below that are the segment registers CS, DS, ES, and SS and the instruction pointer (IP). These are hex numbers and will always be hex numbers. The bottom line has OF, DF, IEF, etc. These are the flags, and the marking underneath them (either a blank or some character) tells how they are set. Finally we have COUNT. This has nothing to do with the 8086. It is a counter that is incremented each time you call show_regs. Keep entering numbers and watch the registers. You will notice that three things are changing - AX, IP and COUNT. AX has the last number you entered and IP keeps changing. Write down the value of IP each time it changes. It goes back and forth between two numbers. That is because you call show_regs in two different places in the loop, {2} and those are two different places in memory where the 8086 is reading the machine code. Why is AX changing? You may have wondered in prog1.asm and prog2.asm how that information was going back and forth between your program and asmhelp.obj. The answer is that in all the programs in asmhelp.obj, if you need to pass information, it is passed via register AX. This is not the normal way to pass information. The normal way is more elegant but more complicated. We will cover that much later. The counter, of course, increases by 1 each time you call show_regs. Try entering a few more numbers and then it's time to go on to the next program. MOVING DATA Obviously, we want to move data from memory to the 8086, from the 8086 to memory, and between registers. We have the following possibilities: (1) move from a register to memory (2) move from memory to a register (3) move a constant to memory (4) move a constant to a register (5) move from one register to another register That's it. There is no 8086 instruction that moves a single word or a byte from one place in memory to another. The move mnemonic for the 8086 is "mov".{3} We need some sample data: ____________________ 2 IP actually has three different values, since you call show_regs once before you enter the loop. 3 A mnemonic is a name for a machine instruction, which sounds like what the instruction is supposed to do - MOV for move, SUB for subtract, IMUL for integer multiplication, etc. The PC Assembler Tutor 20 ______________________ EXAMPLE DATA this_year dw 1989 total dw ? average dw ? time dw 7 age db ? ; I hope you aren't older than 255 poem db "In 1492 Columbus played a mean kazoo." secret_code db 3Bh character db ? Here is some sample code. To move from register to memory, we have: mov total, ax mov time, si mov age, cl mov character, bh The first thing that strikes the eye is that the destination is on the left and the source is on the right.{4} This is standard for the 8086 instruction set, and it's going to take some getting used to. DESTINATION ON LEFT, SOURCE ON RIGHT. You are going to blow this one from time to time, so always double check to make sure that they are in the right order. Also note that the 1 byte registers are matched up with 1 byte variables, and 2 byte registers are matched up with 2 byte data. If the sizes don't match, the assembler will complain.{5} Thus: mov age, ax is an illegal instruction. For examples of memory to register moves, we have: mov ch, secret_code mov di, this_year mov dl, poem ; moves 'I' to dl mov bx, time ____________________ 4 The computer community likes the words "destination" and "source". "Source" means FROM, and "destination" means TO. The 8086 instruction set is designed: MOV TO, FROM which is exactly opposite to the way you would say it in an English sentence. For the 8086, it is always destination on the left, source on the right. 5 Half register and full register operations have different machine codes, and the assembler needs to know which code to use, so the two things must be the same number of bytes. Chapter 3 - ASMHELP.OBJ 21 _______________________ Once again: (1) DESTINATION ON LEFT, SOURCE ON RIGHT, and (2) the sizes of the two objects must match. For constant to memory we have: mov total, 2986 mov age, 36h mov secret_code, 0110100b mov average, (27/5) + 3 The arithmetic is done by the assembler and anything that is made up totally of constants is legal. Thus: mov average, (((64+27)*51 )/(196-82)) is legal but: mov average, this_year/time is illegal. The assembler makes either a one byte or a two byte constant to match the size of the destination. The constants for "total" and "average" are two byte constants while those for "age" and "secret_code" are one byte constants. The constants must be within range, that is -129 is too negative for a byte, 256 is too positive for a byte, -32769 is too negative for a word, 65536 is too positive for a word. The assembler will give an error if the constant is out of range. You can also move a constant to a register: mov al, 'c' mov ax, 'c' mov di, 46280 mov bl, 99 The same rules apply. The constant must be within range and the assembler will make a constant the same size as the destination register (one or two bytes). These constants are actually imbedded in the machine code by the assembler, and are unchangable. Lastly, you can move data from one register to another: mov ax, cx ; from cx to ax mov ah, bl ; from bl to ah mov dl, dh ; from dh to dl mov di, dx ; from dx to di All this is summarized at the end of the chapter. It's time for program #4. All this program is going to do is get input and the move it to different registers. We are still using temp2.asm. Here's the program: TEMP2.ASM The PC Assembler Tutor 22 ______________________ ;+ + + + + + + + + + START DATA BELOW THIS LINE byte_data db ? word_data dw ? ;+ + + + + + + + + + END DATA ABOVE THIS LINE ;+ + + + + + + + + + START CODE BELOW THIS LINE call show_regs This_is_a_very_long_label_name: call get_hex ; (1) call show_regs_and_wait mov dx, ax ; (2) call show_regs_and_wait mov byte_data, al ; (3) mov ch, byte_data call show_regs_and_wait mov word_data, ax ; (4) mov di, word_data call show_regs jmp This_is_a_very_long_label_name ;+ + + + + + + + + + END CODE ABOVE THIS LINE There is a data section in this one, so copy those variables into your data section. Here is what the program does. (1) it gets a hex number from the keyboard, (2) it moves the number in ax to dx, (3) it moves one byte from al to ch via the variable byte_data, and (4) it moves two bytes from ax to di via word_data. There are two different subprograms - show_regs and show_regs_and_wait. They do the same thing except that show_regs_and_wait waits for you to hit the ENTER key before continuing. The computer works so fast that we wouldn't be able to see the changes in the screen if we didn't have a way of pausing. You can use COUNT on the screen to keep track of exactly where you are in the loop. Assemble program 4, link it to asmhelp.obj, and watch it work. There are two things to notice here. First, we are entering a hex number, but AX is displaying an unsigned number. It is not self-evident that the unsigned number in AX is the same as the hex number that you are entering. Secondly, though CH is changing, there doesn't seem to be any relationship between the number in AX and the number in CX. We will solve both problems in the next chapter. Chapter 3 - ASMHELP.OBJ 23 _______________________ SUMMARY MOVING DATA You can: (1) move from a register to memory (2) move from memory to a register (3) move a constant to memory (4) move a constant to a register (5) move from one register to another register The constants are actual constants which are imbedded in the machine code. REGISTERS The normal registers are AX, BX, CX, DX, SI, DI AND BP. AX, BX, CX, and DX can be divided into AH-AL, BH-BL, CH-CL AND DH-DL. The 'H' is for high and the 'L' is for low. SP is committed and may not be used. The segment registers are CS, DS, ES, SS. The instruction pointer (IP) is not available to you. The register that holds the flags is manipulated by special machine instructions. ASMHELP.OBJ Call show_regs to see what is in the 8086 registers. Count increments by one every time you call show_regs. show_regs_and_wait is the same as show_regs except that it waits for you to hit the ENTER key to allow you time to look at the screen. Call set_blue at the outset if you have a color card and a color monitor and you want to have a blue background. get_num gets a signed or unsigned number from the keyboard. (1-5 digits). It does no range checking to see whether the number is too big. All other input routines check to see if a number is too large for its data size. get_hex gets a hex number from the keyboard. (1-4 digits) get_ascii gets characters from the keyboard. (1 or 2 characters) get_binary gets a binary number from the keyboard (1 - 16 digits) print_num prints a number as hex, signed, unsigned, char, and binary. All data transfer to or from ASMHELP.OBJ is via the AX register.