ECE 424 Design of Microprocessor-Based Systems

Introduction to Assembly Language

Programming

Haibo Wang
ECE Department
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901

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Overview of Assembly Language

Advantages:
Faster as compared to programs written using high-level languages
Efficient memory usage
Control down to bit level

Disadvantages:
Need to know detail hardware implementation
Not portable
Slow to development and difficult to debug

Basic components in assembly Language:

Instruction, Directive, Label, and Comment

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Example of Assembly Language Program

;NUMOFF.ASM: Turn NUM-LOCK indicator off.

Comments

.MODEL SMALL
.STACK

Assembly directive

.CODE
.STARTUP
MOV

AX,40H

;set AX to 0040H

D1: MOV

DS,AX

;load data segment with 0040H

MOV

SI,17H

AND

BYTE PTR [SI],0DFH ;clear NUM-LOCK bit

.EXIT
END

Instructions

;load SI with 0017H

Assembly directive

Label

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Instruction Format
General Format of Instructions
Label: Opcode

Operands

; Comment

Label: It is optional. It provides a symbolic address that can be used in branch instructions
Opcode: It specifies the type of instructions
Operands: Instructions of 80x86 family can have one, two, or zero operand
Comments: Only for programmers reference

Machine Code Format

Opcode

MOV AL, BL

Mode

Operand1 Operand2
1000100011000011
MOV

Register
mode

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Assembler Directives
List File

Source File
DATA SEGMENT PARA 'DATA
ORG

DATA SEGMENT PARA 'DATA

ORG

7000H

POINTS DB
SUM

0000

DB

16 DUP(?)
?

7000H

7000 0010 [00]

POINTS DB

7010

SUM

00

DB

16 DUP(?)
?

DATA ENDS

7011

DATA ENDS

CODE SEGMENT PARA 'CODE

0000

CODE SEGMENT PARA 'CODE'

ASSUME CS:CODE, DS:DATA

TOTAL:

ORG

8000H

MOV

AX,7000H

MOV

DS,AX

MOV

AL,0

CODE ENDS

ASSUME CS:CODE, DS:DATA

ORG
8000 B8 7000 TOTAL: MOV
8003 8E D8 MOV

DS,AX

8005 B0 00 MOV

AL,0

8000H
AX,7000H

END TOTAL

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Assembler Directives
SEGMENT directive
ENDS directive
END directive
ORG directive
DB: Define Byte; DW, .
ASSUME directive

Specifies the segment register (segment Register) that will be used to calculate the eff

addresses for all labels and variables defined under a given segment or group name (

If CS = 1230H and DS = 5678H, what are the physical memory addresses of

label TOTAL and variable SUM?

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Assembler Directives
Simplified Segment Directives

Predefined .Mode Types

.MODEL SMALL
DATA
SEGMENT

CODE
SEGMENT

TINY

one

one

SMALL

one

one

MEDIUM

one

multiple

COMPACT

multiple

one

LARGE

multiple

multiple

.DATA
ORG
POINTS DB
SUM

DB

7000H

16 DUP(?)
?

.CODE

TOTAL:

ORG

8000H

MOV

AX,7000H

HUGE

multiple

multiple

MOV

DS,AX

FLAT*

one

one

MOV

AL,0

* Flat is used for 32-bit addressing

RET
END

TOTAL

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Build Executable Programs

library
Source files

Linker

Assembler
Syntax check
Translate source
files into

OBJ
files

machine code
OBJ
files

Executable
files

Question: What is the difference between *.com and *.exe files?

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/msdos-programmer-faq/part2/section-9.html
Assemblers
Microsoft ML, LINK, & DEBUG
8086 Emulator
A86
MASM32 package

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Microsoft MASM and Debug

Microsoft MASM and Link Programs
ML /c /Fl numoff.asm

Syntax check;
Translate assembly instructions into machine codes

Link numoff

Build the executable file

Microsoft Debug Program

C:\> debug
-a
0BDF:0100 MOV AX, 40
0BDF:0103
-t
AX = 0040 BX = 0000 CX = 0000 DX = 0000 SP = .
..
-q

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8086/8088 Assembler and Emulator

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Difference Between EXE and Binary Files

Source File
.model small
.data
org 0010H
Var1 DB 12H
.code
MOV AX, 0000
MOV DS, AX
label1: MOV AL, DS:[0100H]
JMP label1
end

List File

0000
0200 12
0000
0000 B8 0000
0003 8E D8
0005 A0 0100
0008 EB FB

.model small
.data
org 0200H
Var1 DB 12H
.code
MOV AX, 0000
MOV DS, AX
label1: MOV AL, DS:[0100H]
JMP label1
end

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Difference Between EXE and Binary Files

EXE file

Binary file

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