Lecture (01)

By:
Dr. Ahmed ElShafee

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• Assembly language is a low level programming language. You
need to get some knowledge about computer structure in
order to understand anything.
• The simple computer model as I see it:

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• The system bus (shown in yellow) connects the various
components of a computer.
• The CPU is the heart of the computer, most of computations
occur inside the CPU.
• RAM is a place to where the programs are loaded in order to
be executed.

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• Inside the CPU

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• GENERAL PURPOSE REGISTERS
• 8086 CPU has 8 general purpose registers, each register has
its own name:
• · AX - the accumulator register (divided into AH / AL).
• · BX - the base address register (divided into BH / BL).
• · CX - the count register (divided into CH / CL).
• · DX - the data register (divided into DH / DL).
• · SI - source index register.
• · DI - destination index register.
• · BP - base pointer.
• · SP - stack pointer.
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• Despite the name of a register, it's the programmer who
determines the usage for each general purpose register. The
main purpose of a register is to keep a number (variable).
• The size of the above registers is 16 bit, it's something like:
0011000000111001b (in binary form), or 12345 in decimal
(human) form.
• 4 general purpose registers (AX, BX, CX, DX) are made of two
separate 8 bit registers, for example if AX=
0011000000111001b, then AH=00110000b and
AL=00111001b.

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• Therefore, when you modify any of the 8 bit registers 16 bit
register is also updated, and vice-versa.
• The same is for other 3 registers, "H" is for high and "L" is for
low part.
• Because registers are located inside the CPU, they are much
faster than memory.
• Accessing a memory location requires the use of a system bus,
so it takes much longer.
• Accessing data in a register usually takes no time.

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• Therefore, you should try to keep variables in the registers.
• Register sets are very small and most registers have special
purposes which limit their use as variables, but they are still
an excellent place to store temporary data of calculations.

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C VS Assembly
• Mov : Data Movement Instruction
• The mov instruction copies the data item referred to by its
second operand (i.e. register contents, memory contents, or a
constant value) into the location referred to by its first
operand
• Syntax
mov <reg>,<reg>
mov <reg>,<mem>
mov <mem>,<reg>
mov <reg>,<const>
mov <mem>,<const>

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• Arithmetic and Logic Instructions
• add — Integer Addition The add instruction adds together its
two operands, storing the result in its first operand
• Syntax
add <reg>,<reg>
add <reg>,<mem>
add <mem>,<reg>
add <reg>,<con>
add <mem>,<con>

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Example 01
We learned
that before,…
so what’s new


Native C++
high level
language

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Example 02, injecting Assembly
into C++ code
• move
contents of
two memory
locations in
two registers
Execute
addition
inside
processor,
move result
back to
memory
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Example 03, injecting Assembly
into C++ code
• move contents
of one memory
locations in one
register
Execute addition
inside processor
between
memory location
and register put
result onto
register then,
move result back
to memory
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•

16 Dr. Ahmed ElShafee, ACU : Fall 2022, Microprocessors 1

Example 04, injecting Assembly
into C++ code
move contents of
one memory
locations in one
register
Execute addition
inside processor
between memory
location and
register put result
onto memory
location then,
move result back
to memory
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•

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Pure Assembly
• Variables
• Variable is a memory location. For a programmer it is much
easier to have some value be kept in a variable named "var1“
• Assembly supports two types of variables: BYTE and WORD.
• Syntax for a variable declaration:
– name DB value
– name DW value
– DB - stays for Define Byte.
– DW - stays for Define Word.

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 – name - can be any letter or digit combination, though it
should start with a letter. It's possible to declare unnamed
variables by not specifying the name (this variable will
have an address but no name).
– value - can be any numeric value in any supported
numbering system (hexadecimal, binary, or decimal), or
"?" symbol for variables that are not initialized.

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Example 01
Moving two
memory
locations to two
registers,
execute
addition inside
processor,
move result
back to
memory
location

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 Thanks,..

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