Dec Hex Bin

4 4 00000100

ORG ; FOUR
INT 21H
and INT 10H
Programming and
Macros

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
OBJECTIVES
this chapter enables the student to:
• Use INT 10H function calls to:
– Clear the screen.
– Set the cursor position.
– Write characters to the screen in text mode.
– Change the video mode.
• Use INT 21H function calls to:
– Input characters from the keyboard.
– Output characters to the screen.
– Input or output strings.
• Programming with Macros

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.0: INT 21H and 10H

• INT 10H and INT 21H are the most widely used
interrupts with various functions selected by the
value in the AH register.
• In x86 processors, 256 interrupts can be defined

• The INT instruction is somewhat like a FAR call.

– Saves CS:IP and the flags on the stack and goes
to the subroutine associated with that interrupt.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING

• INT 10H subroutines are burned into the ROM BIOS.

– Used to communicate with the computer's screen video.
• Manipulation of screen text/graphics can be done via INT 10H.

• Some the functions associated with INT 10H are:

– changing character or background color,
– Clearing the screen, and
– changing the location of the cursor.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING
monitor screen in text mode
• The monitor screen in the x86 PC is divided into
80 columns and 25 rows in normal text mode.
– Columns are numbered from 0 to 79.
– Rows are numbered 0 to 24.

The top left corner has

been assigned 00,00,
the top right 00,79.
Bottom left is 24,00,
bottom right 24,79.

Figure 4-1 Cursor Locations (row, column)

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING
screen clearing with INT 10H function 06H
• To clear the screen using INT 10H, some registers
must contain certain values before INT 10H is called:
– Option AH = 06 calls the scroll function, to scroll upward.
– CH & CL registers hold starting row & column.
– DH & DL registers hold ending row & column.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING
setting the cursor to a specific location
• INT 10H function AH = 02 set the cursor to a specific
location.

– AH = 02 Set cursor position

– BH = Page number (BH = 00 represents the current page)
– DX = cursor position (DH = row and DL = column)

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING
setting the cursor to a specific location
• Example 4-1 demonstrates setting the cursor to a
specific location.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.1: BIOS INT 10H PROGRAMMING
get current cursor position
• In text mode, determine where the cursor is located
at any time by executing the following:

– After execution of the program, registers DH & DL will

have current row and column positions.
• CX provides information about the shape of the cursor.
– In text mode, page 00 is chosen for the currently viewed
page.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H

• INT 21H is a DOS function call

– Value in AH is used to specify the required function

• Writing a string of data on the screen

– AH = 09
– DX = offset address of the ASCII data to be written on the
screen (data assumed to be in DS).
– End of string is denoted by $ sign

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 09
outputting a data string the monitor
• The data segment and code segment, to display the
message "The earth is but one country"
country :

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 02
outputting a single character
• To output a single character,
• AH = 02
DL is loaded with the character to be displayed.
• The following displays the letter "J" :

– This option can also be used to display '$' on the monitor

as the string display option (option 09) will not display '$‘.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 01
inputting a single character, with echo
• Inputting a single character with echo
• This function waits until a character is input from
the keyboard, then echoes it to the monitor.
– AH = 01
– After the interrupt, the input character will be in AL.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 07, inputting a single
character without echo
• Option 07 requires the user to enter a single
character, which is not displayed (or echoed)
on the screen.
keyboard input without echo
– The PC waits until a single character is entered
and provides the character in AL.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: Combining INT 10H and INT 21H

• Program 4-1 combines INT 10H and INT 21H.

The program does the following:
(1) Clears the screen.
(2) Sets the cursor to
the center of the screen.
(3) Displays the message "This is a test".

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: Combining INT 10H and INT 21H

.DATA CURSOR MOVAH, 02 ; set the cursor at the center

MESSAGE DB ‘This is a test’, ‘$’ MOV BH, 00 ; page 00
;-------------initializing------------- MOV DH, 12 ; center raw
.CODE MOV DL, 39 ; center column
MAIN PROC FAR INT 10H
MOV AX, @DATA RET
MOV DS, AX CURSOR ENDP
CALL CLEAR ; ----------------------------------
CALL CURSOR DISPLAY PROC
CALL DISPLAY MOV AH, 09
MOV AH, 4CH MOV DX, OFFSET MESSAGE
INT 21H INT 21H
MAIN ENDP RET
;-------------------------------------- DISPLAY ENDP
CLEAR PROC END MAIN
MOV AX, 0600 ; Scroll screen
MOV BH, 07 ; Normal
attribute
MOV CX, 0000 ; From 00;00
MOV DX, 184F ; to 18h;4Fh
INT 10H
RET
CLEAR ENDP

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 0AH
inputting a data string from the keyboard
• Enables to get keyboard data & store it in a
predefined memory area.
– AH = 0AH.
– DX = offset address at which the string of data is stored.
• Commonly referred to as a buffer area.

• Buffer is in the data segment.

– The first byte specifies the size of the buffer.
– The number of characters from the keyboard is in the
second byte.
– Keyed-in data placed in the buffer starts at the third byte.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 0AH
inputting a data string from the keyboard
• This program accepts up to six characters from the
keyboard, including the return (carriage return) key.
– Six buffer locations were reserved, and filled with FFH.

– Initial Memory contents of offset 0010H:

– The PC won’t exit INT 21H until it encounters a RETURN.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H Option 0AH
inputting a data string from the keyboard
• Assuming the data entered through the keyboard
was "USA" <RETURN>, the contents of memory
locations starting at offset 0010H would look like:

– 0010H = 06 DOS requires the size of the buffer here.

– 0011H = 03 The keyboard was activated three times
(excluding the RETURN key) to key in letters U, S, and A.
– 0012H = 55H ASCII hex value for letter U.
– 0013H = 53H ASCII hex value for letter S.
– 0014H = 41H ASCII hex value for letter A.
– 0015H = 0DH ASCII hex value for CR. (carriage return)
The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H
inputting more than buffer size
• Entering more than six characters (five + the CR = 6)
will cause the computer to sound the speaker.
– The contents of the buffer will look like this:

– Location 0015 has ASCII 20H for <SPACE>

– Location 0016 has ASCII 61H for "a“.
– Location 0017 has 0D for <RETURN> key.
– The actual length is 05 at memory offset 0011H.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: DOS INTERRUPT 21H
inputting more than buffer size
• If only the CR key is activated & no other character:

– 0AH is placed in memory 0020H.

– 0021H is for the count.
– 0022H IS the first location to have data that was entered.

CR is not included
in the count.

– If only the <RETURN> key is activated, 0022H has 0DH,

the hex code for CR.
• The actual number of characters entered is 0 at location 0021.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?

• There are applications in Assembly language

programming where a group of instructions
performs a task used repeatedly.
– It does not make sense to rewrite them every time.
• Macros allow the programmer to write the task once
only & invoke it whenever, wherever it is needed.
– Reduces time to write code & reduce possibility of errors.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
MACRO definition
• Every macro definition must have three parts:

– The MACRO directive indicates the beginning of the

macro definition, ENDM directive signals the end.
• In between is the body of the macro.
– The name must be unique and must follow Assembly
language naming conventions.
• Dummies are names, parameters, or registers
that are mentioned in the body of the macro.
• The macro can be invoked (or called) by its name, and
appropriate values substituted for dummy parameters.
The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
MACRO definition
• A macro for displaying a string of data using the widely
used function 09 of INT 21H:

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
MACRO definition
• In the following code segment, the macro can be
invoked by its name with the user's actual data:
• Instruction "STRING MESSAGE1" invokes the macro.

– The assembler expands the macro by providing the

following code in the .LST file:

– The (1) indicates that the code is from the macro.

• Earlier versions of MASM, used a plus sign (+).

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
LOCAL directive and its use in macros
• If a macro is expanded more than once, and there is
a label in the label field of the body of the macro,
these labels must be declared as LOCAL.
– Otherwise, an assembler error would be generated when
the same label was encountered in two or more places.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
LOCAL directive and its use in macros
• Rules which must be observed in the macro body:
– 1. All labels in the label field must be declared LOCAL.
– 2. LOCAL directive must be right after the MACRO
directive.
– 3. The LOCAL directive can be used to declare all names
and labels at once.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.3: WHAT IS A MACRO, AND HOW IS IT USED?
LOCAL directive and its use in macros
• In example 4-7, the "BACK" label is defined as LOCAL right after the MACRO directive.

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: Macro Definitions

CLEAR MACRO
MOV AX, 0600 ; Scroll
screen
MOV BH, 07 ; Normal
attribute
MOV CX, 0000 ; From
00;00
MOV DX, 184F ; to CURSOR MACRO RW, CLM ; set the cursor position
18h;4Fh MOV AH, 02
MOV BH, 00 ; page 00
INT 10H MOV DH, RW
ENDM MOV DL, CLM
; ---------------------------------- INT 10H
DISPLAY MACRO MESSAGE ENDM
MOV AH, 09
MOV DX, OFFSET
MESSAGE
INT 21H
ENDM

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
4.2: Macro Definitions

.MODEL SAMALL .CODE

.STACK 64 MAIN PROC FAR
.DATA MOV AX, @DATA
MOV DS, AX
MSG1 DB ‘My name’, ‘$’ CLEAR
MSG2 DB ‘is Ali’, ‘$’ CURSOR 2, 4
MSG3 DB ‘What is’, ‘$’ DISPLAY MSG1
MSG4 DB ‘your name?’, ‘$’ CURSOR 3, 4
; DISPLAY MSG2
CURSOR 10, 4
DISPLAY MSG3
CURSOR 11, 4
DISPLAY MSG4
MOV AH, 4CH
INT 21H
END MAIN

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458
 Dec Hex Bin
4 4 00000100

ENDS ; FOUR

The x86 PC
Assembly Language, Design, and Interfacing © 2010, 2003, 2000, 1998 Pearson Higher Education, Inc.
By Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Janice Gillespie Mazidi and Danny Causey Pearson Prentice Hall - Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458