DP Tool Club 15/CD_ASCQ_15_070894.iso/news/2513/asmintro.txt

Text File | 1994-05-10 | 23KB | 627 lines

        ╓──────────┤% VLA Presents: Intro to Assembler %├──────────╖
        ║                                                          ║
        ╙──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╜



  » Dedicated To Those Who Wish To Begin Exploring The Art Of Assembler. «



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────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
    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)
    ■
    ■
    ■
    ■ « 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