Introduction to Computing Systems

from bits & gates to C & beyond

Chapter 7

LC-2 Assembly Language

 It’s hard to write code in 1’s & 0’s!

 Assembly language makes it possible

to write Machine Language code
 each line of assembly language is translated
into a single ML instruction

A program called the Assembler does the

translation and provides useful tools:
 use of labels - symbolic names for address locations
 automatic conversion of binary / hex / decimal
 pseudo-ops

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7-2 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 A sample program
01 ;
02 ; Program to multiply an integer by the number 6
03 ;
04 .ORIG x3050
05 LD R1, SIX
06 LD R2, NUMBER
07 AND R3, R3, #0 ; clear R3 to hold the product
08 ;
09 ; The inner loop
0A ;
0B AGAIN ADD R3, R3, R2
0C ADD R1, R1, #-1 ; keep track of iterations
0D BRp AGAIN
0E ;
0F HALT
10 ;
11 NUMBER .BLKW 1
12 SIX .FILL x0006
13 ;
14 .END

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7-3 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Assembly Language Instructions
 Formats
 LABEL OPCODE OPERANDS ; COMMENTS
 LABEL PSEUDO-OPS ; COMMENTS

 Opcode
 Symbolic name for the 4-bit ML opcode
 Label
 Symbolic name for a memory location. It is used to:
 indicate the target of a branch instruction, e.g. AGAIN in location 0B
 indicate the location of a stored value or array, e.g. NUMBER and SIX
 Comments
 intended for humans only: explanation of code, visual display

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7-4 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Pseudo-Ops …
 … are directives to the assembler
 they are not translated into ML instructions
 LC-3 Pseudo-Ops:
 .ORIG address Tells assembler where to locate the program in
memory (starting address).
 .FILL value Store value in the next location in memory.
 .BLKW n Set aside a block of n words in memory.
 .STRINGZ string Store the string, one character per word, in
memory. Add a word of x0000 after the string.
 .END Marks the end of the source program (not to be
confused with the instruction HALT!)
 .EXTERNAL The label so indicated is allocated in another module.

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7-5 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 A partial assembly sample
.ORIG x3000 x3000: AND R1, R1, b0 0000
AND R1, R1, #0 x3001: ADD R1, R1, b0 1010
ADD R1, R1, #10 x3002: LD R2, b0 0000 0010
LD R2, Twenty x3003: LD R3, b0 0000 0100
x3004: TRAP b0010 0101
LD R3, Ess
x3005: b0000 0000 0001 0100 ; x0014
HALT
x3006:
Twenty FILL x0014 x3007:
.BLKW 2 x3008: b0000 0000 0101 0011 ; x0053
Ess .FILL “S” x3009: b0000 0000 0100 1000 ; x0048 = ‘H’
.STRINGZ “Hi” x300A: b0000 0000 0110 1001 ; x0069 = ‘i’
.BLKW 3 x300B: x0000 ; null terminator
.END x300C:
x300D:
x300E:

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7-6 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 The Assembly Process
 Objective

 Translate the AL (Assembly Language) program

into ML (Machine Language).
 Each AL instruction yields one ML instruction word.
 Interpret pseudo-ops correctly.

 Problem

 An instruction may reference a label.

 If the label hasn’t been encountered yet, the assembler
can't form the instruction word

 Solution

 Two-pass assembly
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7-7 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Two-Pass Assembly - 1

 First Pass - generating the symbol table

 Scan each line
 Keep track of current address
 Increment by 1 for each instruction
 Adjust as required for any pseudo-ops
(e.g. .FILL or .STRINGZ, etc.)
 For each label
 Enter it into the symbol table
 Allocate to it the current address
 Stop when .END is encountered

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7-8 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Symbol Table example
;
; Program to multiply a number by six
;
 Using the earlier .ORIG x3050
example: x3050 LD R1, SIX
x3051 LD R2, NUMBER
x3052 AND R3, R3, #0
Symbol Address ;

Again x3053 ; The inner loop

;
Number x3057 x3053 AGAIN ADD R3, R3, R2
x3054 ADD R1, R1, #-1
Six x3058 x3055 BRp AGAIN
;
x3056 HALT
;
x3057 NUMBER .BLKW 1
x3058 SIX .FILL x0006
;
.END

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7-9 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Another example - Parity checking
Parity is a function that returns a 1 when the number of 1s
in a word is odd and 0 when it is even.

.ORIG x3000
3000 AND R2, R2, x0 ; clear R2
3001 LDI R1, Input ; load word into R1
Symbol Address 3002 Count BRz Report ; if 0, done counting
Count x3002 3003 BRp Shift ; if >0, skip ADD
3004 ADD R2, R2, x1 ; increment count
Shift x3005
3005 Shift ADD R1, R1, R1 ; shift left 1 bit
Report x3007 3006 BRnzp Count ; go back up
Input x300A 3007 Report AND R3, R2, x1 ; LSB 1 or 0?
3008 STI R3, Output ; store results
Output x300B 3009 TRAP x25 ; halt program
300A Input .FILL x3200 ; address of input
300B Output .FILL x3201 ; address of output

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7 - 10 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Two-Pass Assembly - 2

 Second Pass - generating the ML program

 Scan each line again
 Translate each AL instruction into ML
 Look up symbols in the symbol table instruction
 Ensure that labels are no more than +256 / -255 lines from
instruction
 Determine operand field for the instruction
 Fill memory locations as directed by pseudo-ops
 Stop when .END is encountered

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7 - 11 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside
 Assembled code

 Using the earlier

example:

Symbol Address x3050 0010 001 0 0000 0111 ; LD R1, SIX

x3051 0010 010 0 0000 0101 ; LD R2, NUMBER
Again x3053 x3052 0101 011 011 1 00000 ; AND R3, R3, #0
Number x3057 x3053 0001 011 011 0 00 010 ; ADD R3, R3, R2
x3054 0001 001 001 1 11111 ; ADD R1, R1, #-1
Six x3058 x3055 0000 001 1 1111 1101 ; BRp AGAIN
x3056 1111 0000 0010 0101 ; HALT
x3057 ; .BLKW 1
x3058 0000 0000 0000 0110 ; .FILL x0006

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 Object File

 Each source file is translated into an object file

 a list of ML instructions including the symbol table.

 A complete program may include several

source and/or object files:
 Source files written in Assembly by the programmer
 Library files provided by the system (OS or other)
 Compiled HLL libraries

 The object files must be linked

 One object file will be the “main”
 All cross-referenced labels in symbol tables will be resolved

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 The end result …

… is the executable image (.exe file)

 this is a file (“image”) of the finalized list of ML instructions,
with all symbolic references resolved

 it is loaded by copying the list into memory, starting at the

address specified in the .ORIG directive

 it is run by copying the starting address to the PC

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7 - 14 Slides prepared by Walid A. Najjar & Brian J. Linard, University of California, Riverside