Introduction to 8086 Assembly Language

Assembly Language Programming

Program Statements
Program consist of statement, one per line. Each statement is either an instruction, which the instruction, assembler translate into machine code, or assembler directive, directive, which instructs the assembler to perform some spesific task, such as allocating memory space for a variable or creating a procedure. Both instructions and directives have up to four fields:

name operation operand(s) comment

At least one blank or tab character must separate the fields

Program Statements
An example of an instruction is START: MOV CX,5 ; initialize counter

name operation operand(s) comment

 The name field consists of the label START:  The operation is MOV, the operands are CX and 5  And the comment is ; initialize counter An example of an assembler directive is MAIN PROC

name operation operand(s) comment

 MAIN is the name, and the operation field contains PROC  This particular directive creates a procedure called MAIN

Program Statements
name operation operand(s) comment
A Name field identifies a label, variable, or symbol. It may contain any of the following character : A,B..Z ; a,b.z ; 0,1.9 ; ? ;

A Keyword, or reserved word, always _ (underline) ; @ ; $ ; . (period) have some predefined meaning to the  Only the first assembler. 31 characters are recognized  There is no distinction between uppercase and lower It may be an instruction (MOV, ADD), case letters. The first be an may not be a digit orit may characterassembler directive.  If it is used, the period ( . ) may be used only as the (PROC, TITLE, END) first character.
 A programmer-chosen name may not be the same as programmer-

an assembler reserved word.

Program Statements
name operation operand(s) comment
Operation field is a predefined or reserved word  mnemonic - symbolic operation code. The assembler translates a symbolic opcode into a machine language opcode. Opcode symbols often discribe the operations function; for example, MOV, ADD, SUB  assemler directive - pseudo-operation code. pseudoIn an assembler directive, the operation field (pseudocontains a pseudo-operation code (pseudo-op) pseudoPseudoPseudo-op are not translated into machine code; for example the PROC pseudo-op is used pseudoto create a procedure

Program Statements
name operation operand(s) comment
An operand field specifies the data that are to be acted on by the operation. An instruction may have zero, one, or two operands. For example:  NOP No operands; does nothing
 INC AX

one operand; adds 1 to the contents of AX two operands; adds 2 to the contents of memory WORD1

 ADD WORD1,2

word

Program Statements
name operation operand(s) comment
The comment field is used by the programmer to say something about what the statement does. A semicolon marks the beginning of this field, and the assembler ignores anything typed after semicolon. Comments are optional, but because assembly language is low level, it is almost impossible to understand an assembly language program without comments.

Program Data and Storage

PseudoPseudo-ops to define data or reserve storage
DB - byte(s) DW - word(s) DD - doubleword(s) DQ - quadword(s) DT - tenbyte(s)

These directives require one or more operands

define memory contents specify amount of storage to reserve for runrun-time data

Defining Data
Numeric data values
100 - decimal 100B - binary 100H - hexadecimal '100' - ASCII "100" - ASCII

A list of values may be used - the following creates 4 consecutive words

DW 40CH,10B,-13,0 40CH,10B,-

Use the appropriate DEFINE directive (byte, word, etc.)

A ? represents an uninitialized storage location

DB 255,?,-128,'X' 255,?,-

Naming Storage Locations

Names can be associated with storage locations
ANum DB -4 DW 17 ONE UNO DW 1 X DD ?

These names are called variables

ANum refers to a byte storage location, initialized to FCh The next word has no associated name ONE and UNO refer to the same word X is an unitialized doubleword

 Multiple definitions can be abbreviated Example: message DB B DB y DB e DB 0DH DB 0AH can be written as message DB B,y,e,0DH,0AH More compactly as message DB Bye,0DH,0AH

Arrays
Any consecutive storage locations of the same size can be called an array
X DW 40CH,10B,-13,0 40CH,10B,Y DB 'This is an array' Z DD -109236, FFFFFFFFH, -1, 100B Components of X are at X, X+2, X+4, X+6 Components of Y are at Y, Y+1, , Y+15 Components of Z are at Z, Z+4, Z+8, Z+12

DUP
Allows a sequence of storage locations to be defined or reserved Only used as an operand of a define directive
DB 40 DUP (?) ; 40 words, uninitialized DW 10h DUP (0) ; 16 words, initialized as 0 Table1 DW 10 DUP (?) ; 10 words, uninitialized message DB 3 DUP (Baby) ; 12 bytes, initialized ; as BabyBabyBaby Name1 DB 30 DUP (?) ; 30 bytes, each ; initialized to ?

DUP
The DUP directive may also be nested
Example stars DB 4 DUP(3 DUP (*),2 DUP (?),5 DUP (!)) Reserves 40-bytes space and initializes it as ***??!!!!!***??!!!!!***??!!!!!***??!!!!! matrix DW 10 DUP (5 DUP (0)) defines a 10X5 matrix and initializes its elements to zero. This declaration can also be done by matrix DW 50 DUP (0)

Word Storage
Word, doubleword, and quadword data are stored in reverse byte order (in memory)
Directive DW 256 DD 1234567H DQ 10 X DW 35DAh Bytes in Storage 00 01 67 45 23 01 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 DA 35

Low byte of X is at X, high byte of X is at X+1

Word Storage

Named Constants
Symbolic names associated with storage locations represent addresses Named constants are symbols created to represent specific values determined by an expression Named constants can be numeric or string Some named constants can be redefined No storage is allocated for these values

Equal Sign Directive

name = expression
expression must be numeric these symbols may be redefined at any time maxint = 7FFFh count = 1 DW count count = count * 2 DW count

EQU Directive
name EQU expression
expression can be string or numeric Use < and > to specify a string EQU these symbols cannot be redefined later in the program sample EQU 7Fh aString EQU <1.234> message EQU <This is a message>

Data Transfer Instructions

MOV target, source
reg, reg mem, reg reg, mem mem, immed reg, immed

Sizes of both operands must be the same

reg can be any nonnonsegment register except IP cannot be the target register MOV's between a segment register and memory or a 16-bit 16register are possible

Sample MOV Instructions

b db 4Fh w dw 2048 mov mov mov mov mov mov bl,dh ax,w ch,b al,255 w,w,-100 b,0

When a variable is created with a define directive, it is assigned a default size attribute (byte, word, etc) You can assign a size attribute using LABEL
LoByte LABEL BYTE aWord DW 97F2h

Addresses with Displacements

b db 4Fh, 20h, 3Ch w dw 2048, -100, 0 mov mov mov mov bx, w+2 b+1, ah ah, b+5 dx, w-3 w-

The assembler computes an address based on the expression

NOTE: These are address computations done at assembly time MOV ax, b-1 bwill not subtract 1 from the value stored at b

Type checking is still in effect

eXCHanGe
XCHG target, source
reg, reg reg, mem mem, reg

This provides an efficient means to swap the operands

No temporary storage is needed Sorting often requires this type of operation This works only with the general registers

MOV and XCHG cannot perform memory to memory moves

Arithmetic Instructions
ADD dest, source SUB dest, source INC dest DEC dest NEG dest Operands must be of the same size source can be a general register, memory location, or constant dest can be a register or memory location
except operands cannot both be memory

Program Segment Structure

Data Segments
Storage for variables Variable addresses are computed as offsets from start of this segment

Stack Segment
used to set aside storage for the stack Stack addresses are computed as offsets into this segment

Code Segment
contains executable instructions

Segment directives
.data .code .stack size

Memory Models
.Model memory_model
tiny: code+data <= 64K (.com program) small: code<=64K, data<=64K, one of each medium: data<=64K, one data segment compact: code<=64K, one code segment large: multiple code and data segments huge: allows individual arrays to exceed 64K flat: no segments, 32-bit addresses, protected 32mode only (80386 and higher)

Program Skeleton
.model small .stack 100H .data ;declarations .code main proc ;code main endp ;other procs end main Select a memory model Define the stack size Declare variables Write code
organize into procedures

Mark the end of the source file

optionally, define the entry point

A 100 ; BEGIN ASSEMBLY AT LOCATION 100H MOV AX,5 ; FIRST PROGRAM STATEMENT MOV AX,10 ADD AX,20 MOV [120],AX ; SUM IS AT LOCATION 0120H INT 20 ; END PROGRAM ; PRESS ENTER TO END ASSEMBLY R ; DISPLAY THE REGISTER T ; TRACE ONE INSTRUCTION T T G ; EXECUTE THE REST OF THE PROGRAM Q ; QUIT DEBUG AND RETURN TO DOS