Introduction to ASSEMBLER   by VLA

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── VLA 3/93 Introduction to ASSEMBLER ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Here's something to help those of you who were having trouble understanding the instructional programs we released. Dreaden made these files for the Kabal and myself when we were just learning. These files go over some of the basic concepts of assembler. Bonus of bonuses. These files also have programs imbedded in them. Most of them have a ton of comments so even the beginning programmers should be able to figure them out. If you'd like to learn more, post a message on Phantasm. We need to know where you're interests are before we can make more files to bring out the little programmers that are hiding inside all of us. Lithium/VLA ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── First thing ya need to know is a little jargon so you can talk about the basic data structures with your friends and neighbors. They are (in order of increasing size) BIT, NIBBLE, BYTE, WORD, DWORD, FWORD, PWORD and QWORD, PARA, KiloByte, MegaByte. The ones that you'll need to memorize are BYTE, WORD, DWORD, KiloByte, and MegaByte. The others aren't used all that much, and you wont need to know them to get started. Here's a little graphical representation of a few of those data structures: (The zeros in between the || is a graphical representation of the number of bits in that data structure.) ────── 1 BIT : |0| The simplest piece of data that exists. Its either a 1 or a zero. Put a string of them together and you have a BASE-2 number system. Meaning that instead of each 'decimal' place being worth 10, its only worth 2. For instance: 00000001 = 1; 00000010 = 2; 00000011 = 3, etc.. ────── 1 NIBBLE: |0000| 4 BITs The NIBBLE is half a BYTE or four BITS. Note that it has a maximum value of 15 (1111 = 15). Not by coincidence, HEXADECIMAL, a base 16 number system (computers are based on this number system) also has a maximum value of 15, which is represented by the letter 'F'. The 'digits' in HEXADECIMAL are (in increasing order): "0123456789ABCDEF" The standard notation for HEXADECIMAL is a zero followed by the number in HEX followed by a lowercase "h" For instance: "0FFh" = 255 DECIMAL. ────── 1 BYTE |00000000| 2 NIBBLEs └─ AL ─┘ 8 BITs The BYTE is the standard chunk of information. If you asked how much memory a machine had, you'd get a response stating the number of BYTEs it had. (Usually preceded by a 'Mega' prefix). The BYTE is 8 BITs or 2 NIBBLEs. A BYTE has a maximum value of 0FFh (= 255 DECIMAL). Notice that because a BYTE is just 2 NIBBLES, the HEXADECIMAL representation is simply two HEX digits in a row (ie. 013h, 020h, 0AEh, etc..) The BYTE is also that size of the 'BYTE sized' registers - AL, AH, BL, BH, CL, CH, DL, DH. ────── 1 WORD |0000000000000000| 2 BYTEs └─ AH ─┘└─ AL ─┘ 4 NIBBLEs └───── AX ─────┘ 16 BITs The WORD is just two BYTEs that are stuck together. A word has a maximum value of 0FFFFh (= 65,535). Since a WORD is 4 NIBBLEs, it is represented by 4 HEX digits. This is the size of the 16bit registers on the 80x86 chips. The registers are: AX, BX, CX, DX, DI, SI, BP, SP, CS, DS, ES, SS, and IP. Note that you cannot directly change the contents of IP or CS in any way. They can only be changed by JMP, CALL, or RET. ────── 1 DWORD 2 WORDs |00000000000000000000000000000000| 4 BYTEs │ └─ AH ─┘└─ AL ─┘ 8 NIBBLEs │ └───── AX ─────┘ 32 BITs └──────────── EAX ─────────────┘ A DWORD (or "DOUBLE WORD") is just two WORDs, hence the name DOUBLE-WORD. This can have a maximum value of 0FFFFFFFFh (8 NIBBLEs, 8 'F's) which equals 4,294,967,295. Damn large. This is also the size or the 386's 32bit registers: EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, EDI, ESI, EBP, ESP, EIP. The 'E ' denotes that they are EXTENDED registers. The lower 16bits is where the normal 16bit register of the same name is located. (See diagram.) ────── 1 KILOBYTE |-lots of zeros (8192 of 'em)-| 256 DWORDs 512 WORDs 1024 BYTEs 2048 NIBBLEs 8192 BITs We've all heard the term KILOBYTE byte, before, so I'll just point out that a KILOBYTE, despite its name, is -NOT- 1000 BYTEs. It is actually 1024 bytes. ────── 1 MEGABYTE |-even more zeros (8,388,608 of 'em)-| 1,024 KILOBYTEs 262,144 DWORDs 524,288 WORDs 1,048,576 BYTEs 2,097,152 NIBBLEs 8,388,608 BITs Just like the KILOBYTE, the MEGABYTE is -NOT- 1 million bytes. It is actually 1024*1024 BYTEs, or 1,048,578 BYTEs ────────────────────────────── Now that we know what the different data types are, we will investigate an annoying little aspect of the 80x86 processors. I'm talking about nothing other than SEGMENTS & OFFSETS! SEGMENTS & OFFSETS: ────────────────── Pay close attention, because this topic is (I believe) the single most difficult (or annoying, once you understand it) aspect of ASSEMBLER. An OverView: The original designers of the 8088, way back when dinasaurs ruled the planet, decided that no one would ever possibly need more than one MEG (short for MEGABYTE :) of memory. So they built the machine so that it couldn't access above 1 MEG. To access the whole MEG, 20 BITs are needed. Problem was that the registers only had 16 bits, and if the used two registers, that would be 32 bits, which was way too much (they thought.) So they came up with a rather brilliant (blah) way to do their addressing- they would use two registers. They decided that they would not be 32bits, but the two registers would create 20 bit addressing. And thus Segments and OFfsets were born. And now the confusing specifics. ────────────────── OFFSET = SEGMENT*16 SEGMENT = OFFSET /16 ;note that the lower 4 bits are lost SEGMENT * 16 |0010010000010000----| range (0 to 65535) * 16 + OFFSET |----0100100000100010| range (0 to 65535) = 20 bit address |00101000100100100010| range 0 to 1048575 (1 MEG) └───── DS ─────┘ └───── SI ─────┘ └─ Overlap─┘ This shows how DS:SI is used to construct a 20 bit address. Segment registers are: CS, DS, ES, SS. On the 386+ there are also FS & GS Offset registers are: BX, DI, SI, BP, SP, IP. In 386+ protected mode, ANY general register (not a segment register) can be used as an Offset register. (Except IP, which you can't access.) CS:IP => Points to the currently executing code. SS:SP => Points to the current stack position. ────────────────── If you'll notice, the value in the SEGMENT register is multiplied by 16 (or shifted left 4 bits) and then added to the OFFSET register. Together they create a 20 bit address. Also Note that there are MANY combinations of the SEGMENT and OFFSET registers that will produce the same address. The standard notation for a SEGment/OFFset pair is: ──── SEGMENT:OFFSET or A000:0000 ( which is, of course in HEX ) Where SEGMENT = 0A000h and OFFSET = 00000h. (This happens to be the address of the upper left pixel on a 320x200x256 screen.) ──── You may be wondering what would happen if you were to have a segment value of 0FFFFh and an offset value of 0FFFFh. Take notice: 0FFFFh * 16 (or 0FFFF0h ) + 0FFFFh = 1,114,095, which is definately larger than 1 MEG (which is 1,048,576.) This means that you can actually access MORE than 1 meg of memory! Well, to actually use that extra bit of memory, you would have to enable something called the A20 line, which just enables the 21st bit for addressing. This little extra bit of memory is usually called "HIGH MEMORY" and is used when you load something into high memory or say DOS = HIGH in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. (HIMEM.SYS actually puts it up there..) You don't need to know that last bit, but hey, knowledge is good, right? ────────────────────── THE REGISTERS: ────────────────────── I've mentioned AX, AL, and AH before, and you're probably wondering what exactly they are. Well, I'm gonna go through one by one and explain what each register is and what it's most common uses are. Here goes: ──── AX (AH/AL): AX is a 16 bit register which, as metioned before, is merely two bytes attached together. Well, for AX, BX, CX, & DX you can independantly access each part of the 16 bit register through the 8bit (or byte sized) registers. For AX, they are AL and AH, which are the Low and High parts of AX, respectivly. It should be noted that any change to AL or AH, will change AX. Similairly any changes to AX may or may not change AL and AH. For instance: ──────── Let's suppose that AX = 00000h (AH and AL both = 0, too) mov AX,0 mov AL,0 mov AH,0 Now we set AL = 0FFh. mov AL,0FFh :AX => 000FFh ;I'm just showing ya what's in the registers :AL => 0FFh :AH => 000h Now we increase AX by one: INC AX :AX => 00100h (= 256.. 255+1= 256) :AL => 000h (Notice that the change to AX changed AL and AH) :AH => 001h Now we set AH = 0ABh (=171) mov AH,0ABh :AX => 0AB00h :AL => 000h :AH => 0ABh Notice that the first example was just redundant... We could've set AX = 0 by just doing mov ax,0 :AX => 00000h :AL => 000h :AH => 000h I think ya got the idea... ──────── SPECIAL USES OF AX: Used as the destination of an IN (in port) ex: IN AL,DX IN AX,DX Source for the output for an OUT ex: OUT DX,AL OUT DX,AX Destination for LODS (grabs byte/word from [DS:SI] and INCreses SI) ex: lodsb (same as: mov al,[ds:si] ; inc si ) lodsw (same as: mov ax,[ds:si] ; inc si ; inc si ) Source for STOS (puts AX/AL into [ES:DI] and INCreses DI) ex: stosb (same as: mov [es:di],al ; inc di ) stosw (same as: mov [es:di],ax ; inc di ; inc di ) Used for MUL, IMUL, DIV, IDIV ──── BX (BH/BL): same as AX (BH/BL) SPECIAL USES: As mentioned before, BX can be used as an OFFSET register. ex: mov ax,[ds:bx] (grabs the WORD at the address created by DS and BX) CX (CH/CL): Same as AX SPECIAL USES: Used in REP prefix to repeat an instruction CX number of times ex: mov cx,10 mov ax,0 rep stosb ;this would write 10 zeros to [ES:DI] and increase ;DI by 10. Used in LOOP ex: mov cx,100 THELABEL: ;do something that would print out 'HI' loop THELABEL ;this would print out 'HI' 100 times ;the loop is the same as: dec cx jne THELABAL DX (DH/DL): Same as above SPECIAL USES: USED in word sized MUL, DIV, IMUL, IDIV as DEST for high word or remainder ex: mov bx,10 mov ax,5 mul bx ;this multiplies BX by AX and puts the result ;in DX:AX ex: (continue from above) div bx ;this divides DX:AX by BX and put the result in AX and ;the remainder (in this case zero) in DX Used as address holder for IN's, and OUT's (see ax's examples) INDEX REGISTERS: DI: Used as destination address holder for stos, movs (see ax's examples) Also can be used as an OFFSET register SI: Used as source address holder for lods, movs (see ax's examples) Also can be used as OFFSET register Example of MOVS: movsb ;moves whats at [DS:SI] into [ES:DI] and increases movsw ; DI and SI by one for movsb and 2 for movsw NOTE: Up to here we have assumed that the DIRECTION flag was cleared. If the direction flag was set, the DI & SI would be DECREASED instead of INCREASED. ex: cld ;clears direction flag std ;sets direction flag STACK RELATED INDEX REGISTERS: BP: Base Pointer. Can be used to access the stack. Default segment is SS. Can be used to access data in other segments throught the use of a SEGMENT OVERRIDE. ex: mov al,[ES:BP] ;moves a byte from segment ES, offset BP Segment overrides are used to specify WHICH of the 4 (or 6 on the 386) segment registers to use. SP: Stack Pointer. Does just that. Segment overrides don't work on this guy. Points to the current position in the stack. Don't alter unless you REALLY know what you are doing. SEGMENT REGISTERS: DS: Data segment- all data read are from the segment pointed to be this segment register unless a segment overide is used. Used as source segment for movs, lods This segment also can be thought of as the "Default Segment" because if no segment override is present, DS is assumed to be the segmnet you want to grab the data from. ES: Extra Segment- this segment is used as the destination segment for movs, stos Can be used as just another segment... You need to specify [ES:░░] to use this segment. FS: (386+) No particular reason for it's name... I mean, we have CS, DS, and ES, why not make the next one FS? :) Just another segment.. GS: (386+) Same as FS OTHERS THAT YOU SHOULDN'T OR CAN'T CHANGE: CS: Segment that points to the next instruction- can't change directly IP: Offset pointer to the next instruction- can't even access The only was to change CS or IP would be through a JMP, CALL, or RET SS: Stack segment- don't mess with it unless you know what you're doing. Changing this will probably crash the computer. This is the segment that the STACK resides in. ──────── Heck, as long as I've mentioned it, lets look at the STACK: The STACK is an area of memory that has the properties of a STACK of plates- the last one you put on is the first one take off. The only difference is that the stack of plates is on the roof. (Ok, so that can't really happen... unless gravity was shut down...) Meaning that as you put another plate (or piece of data) on the stack, the STACK grows DOWNWARD. Meaning that the stack pointer is DECREASED after each PUSH, and INCREASED after each POP. _____ Top of the allocated memory in the stack segment (SS) ■ ■ ■ ■ ½ SP (the stack pointer points to the most recently pushed byte) Truthfully, you don't need to know much more than a stack is Last In, First Out (LIFO). WRONG ex: push cx ;this swaps the contents of CX and AX push ax ;of course, if you wanted to do this quicker, you'd ... pop cx ;just say XCHG cx,ax pop ax ; but thats not my point. RIGHT ex: push cx ;this correctly restores AX & CX push ax ... pop ax pop cx ──────────── Now I'll do a quick run through on the assembler instructions that you MUST know: ──── MOV: Examples of different addressing modes: MOV ax,5 ;moves and IMMEDIATE value into ax (think 'AX = 5') MOV bx,cx ;moves a register into another register MOV cx,[SI] ;moves [DS:SI] into cx (the Default Segment is Used) MOV [DI+5],ax ;moves ax into [DS:DI+5] MOV [ES:DI+BX+34],al ;same as above, but has a more complicated ;OFFSET (=DI+BX+34) and a SEGMENT OVERRIDE MOV ax,[546] ;moves whats at [DS:546] into AX Note that the last example would be totally different if the brackets were left out. It would mean that an IMMEDIATE value of 546 is put into AX, instead of what's at offset 546 in the Default Segment. ANOTHER STANDARD NOTATION TO KNOW: Whenever you see brackets [] around something, it means that it refers to what is AT that offset. For instance, say you had this situation: ──────────── MyData dw 55 ... mov ax,MyData ──────────── What is that supposed to mean? Is MyData an Immediate Value? This is confusing and for our purposes WRONG. The 'Correct' way to do this would be: ──────────── MyData dw 55 ... mov ax,[MyData] ──────────── This is clearly moving what is AT the address of MyData, which would be 55, and not moving the OFFSET of MyData itself. But what if you actually wanted the OFFSET? Well, you must specify directly. ──────────── MyData dw 55 ... mov ax,OFFSET MyData ──────────── Similiarly, if you wanted the SEGMENT that MyData was in, you'd do this: ──────────── MyData dw 55 ... mov ax,SEG MyData ──────────── ──────────────────────── INT: Examples: INT 21h ;calls DOS standard interrupt # 21h INT 10h ;the Video BIOS interrupt.. INT is used to call a subroutine that performs some function that you'd rather not write yourself. For instance, you would use a DOS interrupt to OPEN a file. You would similiarly use the Video BIOS interrupt to set the screen mode, move the cursor, or to do any other function that would be difficult to program. Which subroutine the interrupt preforms is USUALLY specified by AH. For instance, if you wanted to print a message to the screen you'd use INT 21h, subfunction 9 by doing this: ──────────── mov ah,9 int 21h ──────────── Yes, it's that easy. Of course, for that function to do anything, you need to specify WHAT to print. That function requires that you have DS:DX be a FAR pointer that points to the string to display. This string must terminate with a dollar sign. Here's an example: ──────────── MyMessage db "This is a message!$" ... mov dx,OFFSET MyMessage mov ax,SEG MyMessage mov ds,ax mov ah,9 int 21h ... ──────────── The DB, like the DW (and DD) merely declares the type of a piece of data. DB => Declare Byte (I think of it as 'Data Byte') DW => Declare Word DD => Declare Dword Also, you may have noticed that I first put the segment value into AX and then put it into DS. I did that because the 80x86 does NOT allow you to put an immediate value into a segment register. You can, however, pop stuff into a Segment register or mov an indexed value into the segment register. A few examples: ──────────── LEGAL: mov ax,SEG MyMessage mov ds,ax push SEG Message pop ds mov ds,[SegOfMyMessage] ;where [SegOfMyMessage] has already been loaded with ; the SEGMENT that MyMessage resides in ILLEGAL: mov ds,10 mov ds,SEG MyMessage ──────────── Well, that's about it for what you need to know to get started... ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── And now the FRAME for an ASSEMBLER program. ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── The Basic Frame for an Assembler program using Turbo Assembler simplified directives is: ;===========- DOSSEG ;This arranges the segments in order according DOS standards ;CODE, DATA, STACK .MODEL SMALL ;dont worry about this yet .STACK 200h ;tells the compiler to put in a 200h byte stack .CODE ;starts code segment ASSUME CS:@CODE, DS:@CODE START: ;generally a good name to use as an entry point mov ax,4c00h int 21h END START ;===========- By the way, a semicolon means the start of a comment. If you were to enter this program and TASM & TLINK it, it would execute perfectly. It will do absolutly nothing, but it will do it well. What it does: Upon execution, it will jump to START. move 4c00h into AX, and call the DOS interrupt, which exits back to DOS. Outout seen: NONE ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── That's nice, eh? If you've understood the majority of what was presented in this document, you are ready to start programming! See ASM0.TXT and ASM0.ASM to continue this wonderful assembler stuff... Written By Draeden/VLA