Chapter Four

INSTRUCTIONS
 Instructions
The 8086 microprocessor supports 8 types of instructions −
• Data Transfer Instructions
• Arithmetic Instructions
• Bit Manipulation Instructions
• String Instructions
• Program Execution Transfer Instructions (Branch & Loop Instructions)
• Processor Control Instructions
• Iteration Control Instructions
• Interrupt Instructions
 Data Transfer Instructions
• These instructions are used to transfer the data from the source operand to the
destination operand. Following are the list of instructions under this group −
Instruction to transfer a word
• MOV − Used to copy the byte or word from the provided source to the provided
destination.
• PPUSH − Used to put a word at the top of the stack.
• POP − Used to get a word from the top of the stack to the provided location.
• PUSHA − Used to put all the registers into the stack.
• POPA − Used to get words from the stack to all registers.
• XCHG − Used to exchange the data from two locations.
• XLAT − Used to translate a byte in AL using a table in the memory.
 …cont’d

Instructions for input and output port transfer

• IN − Used to read a byte or word from the provided port to the accumulator.
• OUT − Used to send out a byte or word from the accumulator to the
provided port.
Instructions to transfer the address
• LEA − Used to load the address of operand into the provided register.
• LDS − Used to load DS register and other provided register from the
memory
• LES − Used to load ES register and other provided register from the
memory.
 …cont’d

Instructions to transfer flag registers

• LAHF − Used to load AH with the low byte of the flag register.
• SAHF − Used to store AH register to low byte of the flag register.
• PUSHF − Used to copy the flag register at the top of the stack.
• POPF − Used to copy a word at the top of the stack to the flag
register.
 Arithmetic Instructions

• These instructions are used to perform arithmetic operations like addition,

subtraction, multiplication, division, etc.
• Following is the list of instructions under this group −
Instructions to perform addition
• ADD − Used to add the provided byte to byte/word to word.
• ADC − Used to add with carry.
• INC − Used to increment the provided byte/word by 1.
• AAA − Used to adjust ASCII after addition.
• DAA − Used to adjust the decimal after the addition/subtraction operation.
 …cont’d
Instructions to perform subtraction
• SUB − Used to subtract the byte from byte/word from word.
• SBB − Used to perform subtraction with borrow.
• DEC − Used to decrement the provided byte/word by 1.
• NPG − Used to negate each bit of the provided byte/word and add 1/2’s
complement.
• CMP − Used to compare 2 provided byte/word.
• AAS − Used to adjust ASCII codes after subtraction.
• DAS − Used to adjust decimal after subtraction.
Instruction to perform multiplication
• MUL − Used to multiply unsigned byte by byte/word by word.
• IMUL − Used to multiply signed byte by byte/word by word.
• AAM − Used to adjust ASCII codes after multiplication.
 …cont’d
Instructions to perform division
• DIV − Used to divide the unsigned word by byte or unsigned double
word by word.
• IDIV − Used to divide the signed word by byte or signed double word by
word.
• AAD − Used to adjust ASCII codes after division.
• CBW − Used to fill the upper byte of the word with the copies of sign bit
of the lower byte.
• CWD − Used to fill the upper word of the double word with the sign bit
of the lower word.
 Bit Manipulation Instructions
• These instructions are used to perform operations where data bits are
involved, i.e. operations like logical, shift, etc.
• Following is the list of instructions under this group −
Instructions to perform logical operation
• NOT − Used to invert each bit of a byte or word.
• AND − Used for adding each bit in a byte/word with the corresponding bit in
another byte/word.
• OR − Used to multiply each bit in a byte/word with the corresponding bit in
another byte/word.
• XOR − Used to perform Exclusive-OR operation over each bit in a byte/word
with the corresponding bit in another byte/word.
• TEST − Used to add operands to update flags, without affecting operands.
 …cont’d
Instructions to perform shift operations
• SHL/SAL − Used to shift bits of a byte/word towards left and put zero(S) in LSBs.
• SHR − Used to shift bits of a byte/word towards the right and put zero(S) in MSBs.
• SAR − Used to shift bits of a byte/word towards the right and copy the old MSB
into the new MSB.
Instructions to perform rotate operations
• ROL − Used to rotate bits of byte/word towards the left, i.e. MSB to LSB and to
Carry Flag [CF].
• ROR − Used to rotate bits of byte/word towards the right, i.e. LSB to MSB and to
Carry Flag [CF].
• RCR − Used to rotate bits of byte/word towards the right, i.e. LSB to CF and CF to
MSB.
• RCL − Used to rotate bits of byte/word towards the left, i.e. MSB to CF and CF to
LSB.
 String Instructions
• String is a group of bytes/words and their memory is always allocated in a sequential
order.
• Following is the list of instructions under this group −
• REP − Used to repeat the given instruction till CX ≠ 0.
• REPE/REPZ − Used to repeat the given instruction until CX = 0 or zero flag ZF = 1.
• REPNE/REPNZ − Used to repeat the given instruction until CX = 0 or zero flag ZF = 1.
• MOVS/MOVSB/MOVSW − Used to move the byte/word from one string to another.
• COMS/COMPSB/COMPSW − Used to compare two string bytes/words.
• INS/INSB/INSW − Used as an input string/byte/word from the I/O port to the provided
memory location.
• OUTS/OUTSB/OUTSW − Used as an output string/byte/word from the provided
memory location to the I/O port.
• SCAS/SCASB/SCASW − Used to scan a string and compare its byte with a byte in AL
or string word with a word in AX.
• LODS/LODSB/LODSW − Used to store the string byte into AL or string word into AX
Program Execution Transfer Instructions (Branch
and Loop Instructions)

• These instructions are used to transfer/branch the instructions during an

execution. It includes the following instructions −
Instructions to transfer the instruction during an execution without any
condition −
• CALL − Used to call a procedure and save their return address to the stack.
• RET − Used to return from the procedure to the main program.
• JMP − Used to jump to the provided address to proceed to the next
instruction.
 …cont’d
Instructions to transfer the instruction during an execution with some conditions −
• JA/JNBE − Used to jump if above/not below/equal instruction satisfies.
• JAE/JNB − Used to jump if above/not below instruction satisfies.
• JBE/JNA − Used to jump if below/equal/ not above instruction satisfies.
• JC − Used to jump if carry flag CF = 1
• JE/JZ − Used to jump if equal/zero flag ZF = 1
• JG/JNLE − Used to jump if greater/not less than/equal instruction satisfies.
• JGE/JNL − Used to jump if greater than/equal/not less than instruction satisfies.
• JL/JNGE − Used to jump if less than/not greater than/equal instruction satisfies.
• JLE/JNG − Used to jump if less than/equal/if not greater than instruction satisfies.
• JNC − Used to jump if no carry flag (CF = 0)
• JNE/JNZ − Used to jump if not equal/zero flag ZF = 0
• JNO − Used to jump if no overflow flag OF = 0
• JNP/JPO − Used to jump if not parity/parity odd PF = 0
• JNS − Used to jump if not sign SF = 0
• JO − Used to jump if overflow flag OF = 1
• JP/JPE − Used to jump if parity/parity even PF = 1
• JS − Used to jump if sign flag SF = 1
 Processor Control Instructions

• These instructions are used to control the processor action by

setting/resetting the flag values.
Following are the instructions under this group −
• STC − Used to set carry flag CF to 1
• CLC − Used to clear/reset carry flag CF to 0
• CMC − Used to put complement at the state of carry flag CF.
• STD − Used to set the direction flag DF to 1
• CLD − Used to clear/reset the direction flag DF to 0
• STI − Used to set the interrupt enable flag to 1, i.e., enable INTR input.
• CLI − Used to clear the interrupt enable flag to 0, i.e., disable INTR input.
 Iteration Control Instructions

• These instructions are used to execute the given instructions for number of
times.
Following is the list of instructions under this group −
• LOOP − Used to loop a group of instructions until the condition satisfies,
i.e., CX = 0
• LOOPE/LOOPZ − Used to loop a group of instructions till it satisfies ZF = 1 &
CX = 0
• LOOPNE/LOOPNZ − Used to loop a group of instructions till it satisfies ZF =
0 & CX = 0
• JCXZ − Used to jump to the provided address if CX = 0
 Interrupt Instructions

These instructions are used to call the interrupt during program execution.
• INT − Used to interrupt the program during execution and calling service
specified.
• INTO − Used to interrupt the program during execution if OF = 1
• IRET − Used to return from interrupt service to the main program
 Data Movement Instruction

• These instructions are used to transfer data from source to destination.

• The operand can be a constant, memory location, register or I/O port address.
• Data movement instructions can be grouped into loads, stores, moves, and
immediate loads.
Load instructions move data from memory to registers
Store instructions move data from registers to memory.
Move instructions move data from one register to another.
Immediate load instructions move constants, including addresses, to registers.
 MOV Revisited
• The MOV instruction introduces the ma-chine language instructions
available with various addressing modes and instructions
• It is the native binary code that the micro-processor understands and uses
as its instructions to control its operation
• The Opcode – The opcode selects the operation (addition, subtraction,
move, etc) performed by the microprocessor
• The opcode is either one or two bytes long for most machine language
instructions
• The first six bits of the first byte are the binary op-code
• The remaining two bits indicate the direction (D) of the data flow and
whether the data are byte or a word (W)
 PUSH/POP
• PUSH - stores 16 bit value in the stack.
• POP - gets 16 bit value from the stack.
 …cont’d

Notes:
• PUSH and POP work with 16 bit values only!
• PUSH immediate works only on 80186 CPU and later!
 …cont’d
• The stack uses LIFO (Last In First Out) algorithm, this means that if we push
these values one by one into the stack: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 the first value that we will
get on pop will be 5, then 4, 3, 2, and only then 1.

• It is very important to do equal number of PUSHs and POPs, otherwise the

stack maybe corrupted and it will be impossible to return to operating system.
• As you already know we use RET instruction to return to operating system, so
when program starts there is a return address in stack (generally it's 0000h).
 …cont’d
Here is an example:

Another use of the stack is for exchanging the values, here is an example:
 Load-Effective Address

• The lea (load effective address) instruction is used to put a memory address
into the destination.

• Examples
• lea eax, [ebx+8] :-Put [ebx+8] into EAX. After this instruction, EAX will
equal 0x00403A48

•.
 Based on Functionality
• String is a series of data byte or word available in memory at consecutive
locations.
• It is either referred as byte string or word string.
• Their memory is always allocated in a sequential order.
• Instructions used to manipulate strings are called string manipulation
instructions.
• The String Instruction in 8086 are namely,
…cont’d
 Arithmetic and Logic instructions
• Logical Instructions
a) AND: Logical AND
• Atleast one of the operant should be a register or a memory operant both
the operant cannot be a memory location or immediate operant.

b) OR: logical OR
• Both inputs are low in this case
 …cont’d
c) NOT: logical invert

d) XOR: logical Exclusive OR

 …cont’d
e)TEST instruction: Logical compare instruction
• It will do bit by bit AND operation on the operands. Each bit of the result is then said
to be 1 if the corresponding bit else the result bit is said to zero.

f) SHL: Shift left logical

• It will shift the operant bit by bit to the left and insert the zero in the newly introduced
least significant bits. Here operant is not an immediate data.
 AI Tools and Platforms

g) SHR: Shift right logical

h) SAR: Shift Right Arithmetic

• Same as the logical shift but it inserts the most significant bit of the operand
in the newly inserted position.
i) ROR (Rotate Right without carry)
 …cont’d

j) ROL (Rotate left without carry)

k) RCR ( Rotate right through carry)

l) RCL (Rotate left through carry)

 Arithmetic Operations
(1) ADD
• In this operation we perform sum of data in two different registers.
• Memory to memory operation is not possible. Source and destination operant cannot be a memory
location.
• Also the content of segment register cannot be added.
(2) ADC ( Add with carry)
• Same as add instruction, but adds the carry flag bit.
(3) INC ( Increment)
• Increment the data by 1 and immediate data cannot be an operand here.
(4) DEC ( decrement by 1)
• Decreases data by 1 and immediate data cannot be an operand.
(5) SUB
• It will subtract source operand from destination and result is stored in destination.
• Both operands may not be a memory operand and destination operand must not be an immediate data.
(6) SBB (Subtract with borrow)
• Borrow flag/ Carry flag is also subtracted.
 …cont’d
(7) CMP (compare)
• For comparison it subtract source operand from the destination, but result is not stored anywhere.
(8) ASS (ASCII adjust AL after subtraction)
• It converts the result of subtraction of two valid unpacked BCD digits to a single valid BCD no. and takes AL as
implicit operand.
(9) AAM (ASCII adjust after multiplication)
• AAM converts the result of multiplication of two valid BCD digits to a single valid BCD no. takes AC as implicit
operand.
• It unpacks the result by dividing AX by 10 placing the quotient into AH and remainder in AL.
(10) AAD (ASCII adjust before division)
• It converts unpacked BCD digits in AH and AL register in a single binary number in AX register in preparation for a
division operation.
• Before executing AAD placed most significant BCD digit in the AH register and least significant digit in AL register.
Then the two BCD digits are combined in a single binary number by setting.
(11) DAA (Decimal adjust accumulator)
• Used to convert the result of the addition of 2 packed BCD no. to valid BCD no. if lower nibble AL > 9.
(12) DAS (Decimal address after subtraction)
• It converts the result of subtraction of two packed number to a valid BCD no.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR
PROGRAM CONTROL INSTRUCTIONS