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Introduction to Assembly Language

– A program that consists of 0s and 1s is called machine language.

– Although the hexadecimal system was used as a more efficient way

to represent binary numbers, the process of working in machine
code was sill cumbersome for humans.

– Assembly languages were developed , which provided mnemonics

for the machine code instructions, plus other features that made
programming faster and less prone to error.

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Introduction to Assembly Language

– Assembly language programs must be translated into machine code

(object code) by a program called an assembler.

– Assembly language is referred to as a low-level language because it deals

directly with the internal structure of the CPU.

– To program in assembly language, the programmer must know the

number of registers and their size, as other details of the CPU.

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Introduction to Assembly Language

– An assembly language instruction consists of a mnemonic, optionally

followed by one or two operands.
– Mnemonic: telling what to do to the CPU,
– Operand: Data

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MOV instruction
– The MOV instruction copies data from one location to another.

– MOV destination, source ----- Syntax

– The above instruction tells the CPU to move (in reality, copy) the source
operand to the destination operand.

– For example, the instruction MOV DX, CX copies the contents of register
CX to register DX.
– The MOV instruction does not affect the source operand.
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MOV instruction
– In the 8086 CPU, data can be moved among all the registers as long as the
source and destination registers match in size.
– Code such as MOV AL, DX will cause an error, since one cannot move the
contents of a 16-bit register into an 8-bit register.

– Values cannot be loaded directly into any segment register.

– First load it to a non segment register and then move it to the segment
register.

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MOV instruction
– If a value less than FFH is moved into a 16-bit register, the rest of the bits
are assumed to be zeros.
– For example, in MOV BX, 5 the result will be BX=0005; that is BH=00 and
BL=05.

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ADD Instruction
– The ADD instruction tells the CPU to add the source and the destination
operands and put the result in the destination.
ADD destination, source ----- Syntax

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8 Memory Segmentation

– Two types of memory organizations are commonly used: linear addressing and
segmented addressing.

– In linear addressing the entire memory space is available to the processor in

one linear array.

– In segmented addressing the available memory space is divided into segments.

– In 8086 the memory is divided into 16 logical segments.

– Each segment is 64kB in size and addressed by one of the segment registers.

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9 Memory Segmentation

– The code segment contains the assembly language instructions that perform
the tasks that the program was designed to accomplish.

– The data segment is used to store information (data) that needs to be

processed by the instructions in the code segment.

– The stack is used to store information temporarily.

– A segment is an area of memory that includes up to 64kB and begins on an

address evenly divisible by 16 (such an address ends in 0H).

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10 Memory Segmentation

– Physical address is the 20-bit address that is actually put on the address pins of
the 8086 microprocessor and decoded by the memory interfacing circuitry.
– It is an actual physical location in RAM or ROM within the 1MB memory range.

– Offset address is a location within a 64kB segment range.

– Logical address consists of a segment value and an offset address.

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11 Memory Segmentation

– The 16-bit contents of the segment register gives the starting/base address of
a particular segment.

– To address a specific memory location within a segment we need an offset

address.

– The offset address is also 16-bit wide and it is provided by one of the associated
pointer or index register.

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12 Memory Segmentation

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13 Memory Segmentation

– Code Segment
 To execute a program, the 8086 fetches the instructions (op-codes
and operands) from the code segment.

 The logical address of an instruction always consists of a CS and an

IP.

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14 Memory Segmentation

– Example

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15 Logical address vs. physical
address

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16 Logical address vs. physical
address
– The program above shows that the byte at address 1132:0100
contains B0, which is the op-code for moving a value into register
AL, and address 1132:0101 contains the operand (in this case 57)
to be moved to AL.

– Therefore, the instruction MOV AL, 57 has a machine code of

B057, where B0 is the op-code and 57 is the operand.

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Data Segment
– The 16-bit contents of the segment register gives the starting/base address of a
particular segment.

– To address a specific memory location within a segment we need an offset

address.

– The offset address is also 16-bit wide and it is provided by one of the associated
pointer or index register.

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18 Little Endian Convention

 We have seen when 8-bit data is used the bytes are stored one after the another in memory. What
happens when 16-bit data is used? For example:

MOV AX, 35F3H

MOV [1500], AX

 In cases like this, the low byte goes to the low memory location and the high byte goes to the high
memory location.

DS:1500 = F3 DS:1501 = 35

 This convention is called little endian convention. All Intel microprocessors and many
microcomputers use this convention.

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Cont.…

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20 Extra Segment

 ES is a segment used as an extra data segment.

 Although in many normal programs this segment is not used, its use is
absolutely essential for string operations.

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21 Stack Segment

 The stack is a section of read/write memory (RAM) used by the CPU to store
information temporarily.
 The CPU needs this storage area since there are only a limited number of
registers.

 The two main registers used to access the stack are the SS register and the SP
register.
 These registers must be loaded before any instructions accessing the stack are
used.

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Cont.…

 The storing of a CPU register in the stack is called a push, and loading the contents
of the stack into the CPU register is called a pop.

 In the 8086, the stack pointer register (SP) points at the current memory location
used for the top of the stack and as data is pushed onto the stack it is decremented.
It is incremented as data is popped off the stack into the CPU.

 When an instruction pushes or pops a general purpose register, it must be the entire
16-bit register. In other words, one must code “PUSH AX”; there is no instruction
such as “PUSH AL”.

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Cont.…

 To ensure that the code section and stack section of the program never write over
each other, they are located at opposite ends of the RAM memory set aside for the
program and they grow toward each other but must not meet. If they meet, the
program will crash.

 As each PUSH is executed, the contents of the register are saved on the stack and SP
is decremented by 2.

 With every pop, the top 2 bytes of the stack are copied to the register specified by
the instruction and the stack pointer is incremented twice.

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Example

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Example

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Cont.…

 What values are assigned to the SP and SS, and who assigns them?
– It is the job of the DOS to assign the values for the SP
and SS since memory management is the responsibility
of the operating system.

 The top of the stack is the last stack location occupied.

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Example

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