CSC 313:

Computer Organization &

Assembly Language

Basic Elements of Assembly Language

Instructor: Mr. Fasih-ud-Din

Email: [email protected]
 Assembling
2

Assembling converts source program into object

program if syntactically correct and generates
an intermediate .obj file or module.
It calculates the offset address for every data
item in data segment and every instruction in
code segment.
A header is created which contains the
incomplete address in front of the generated obj
module during the assembling.
Assembler complains about the syntax error if
any and does not generate the object module.
 3

Assembler creates .obj .lst and .crf files

and last two are optional files that can be
created at run time.
For short programs, assembling can be done
manually where the programmer translates
each mnemonic into the machine language
using lookup table.
Assembler reads each assembly instruction of
a program as ASCII character and translates
them into respective machine code.
 Assembler Types
4

There are two types of assemblers:

One pass assembler
This assembler scans the assembly language
program once and converts to object code at
the same time.
This assembler has the program of defining
forward references only.
The jump instruction uses an address that
appears later in the program during scan, for
that case the programmer defines such
addresses after the program is assembled.
 5

b) Two pass assembler

This type of assembler scans the assembly language
twice.
First pass generates symbol table of names and
labels used in the program and calculates their
relative address.
This table can be seen at the end of the list file and
here user need not define anything.
Second pass uses the table constructed in first pass
and completes the object code creation.
This assembler is more efficient and easier than
earlier.
6
 Linking
7

This involves the converting of .OBJ module

into .EXE(executable) module i.e.
executable machine code.
- It completes the address left by the
assembler.
It combines separately assembled object files.
- Linking creates .EXE, .LIB, .MAP files
among which last two are optional files.
 Loading and Executing
8

It Loads the program in memory for

execution.
It resolves remaining address.
This process creates the program segment
prefix (PSP) before loading.
It executes to generate the result.
Sample program assembling object Program linking executable
program Writing
 Writing .COM programs
9

It fits for memory resident programs.

Code size limited to 64K.
.com combines PSP, CS, DS in the same segment
SP is kept at the end of the segment (FFFF), if 64k is
not enough, DOS Places stack at the end of the
memory.
The advantage of .com program is that they are
smaller than .exe program.
A program written as .com requires ORG 100H
immediately following the code segment’s
SEGMENT statement. The statement sets the
offset address to the beginning of execution
following the PSP.
 10

.MODEL TINY
.CODE
ORG 100H ; Start at end of PSP
BEGIN:JMP MAIN ; Jump Past data
VAL1 DW 5491
VAL2 DW 372
SUM DW ?
MAIN: PROC NEAR
MOV Ax, VALL
ADD AX, VAL2
MOV SUM, AX
MOV AX, 4C00H
INT 21H
MAIN ENDP
END BEGIN
 Macro Assembler
11
A macro is an instruction sequence that appears
repeatedly in a program assigned with a specific name.
The macro assembler replaces a macro name with the
appropriate instruction sequence each time it
encounters a macro name.
When same instruction sequence is to be executed
repeatedly, macro assemblers allow the macro name to
be typed instead of all instructions provided the macro
is defined.
- Macro are useful for the following purposes:
 To simplify and reduce the amount of repetitive coding. o To
reduce errors caused by repetitive coding.
 To make an assembly language program more readable.
 Macro executes faster because there is no need to call and
return.
 Basic Format of Macro Definition
12

Macro name MACRO [Parameter list] ; Define macro

……………………….
……………………….
[Instructions] ; Define macro
……………………….
……………………….
ENDM ; End of macro
Example:

Addition MACRO
IN AX, PORT
ADD AX, BX
OUT PORT, AX
ENDM
 Passing argument to MACRO
13

 To make a macro more flexible, we can define parameters as dummy

argument
Addition MACRO VALL1, VAL2
MOV AX, VAL1
ADD AX, VAL2
MOV SUM, AX
ENDM
.MODEL SMALL
.STACK 64
.DATA
VAL1 DW 3241
VAL2 DW 571 SUM DW ?
.CODE
MAIN PROC FAR
MOV AX, @ DATA
MOV DS, AX
 14

Addition VAL1, VAL 2

MOV AX, 4C00H
INT 21H
MAIN ENDP
END MAIN
 Addressing modes in 8086
15

Addressing modes describe types of operands

and the way in which they are accessed for
executing an instruction. An operand address
provides source of data for an instruction to
process an instruction to process. An
instruction may have from zero to two
operands. For two operands first is
destination and second is source operand.
The basic modes of addressing are register,
immediate and memory which are described
below.
 16

1) Register Addressing:

For this mode, a register may contain source
operand, destination operand or both. E.g. MOV AH,
BL
MOV DX, CX

2) Immediate Addressing

In this type of addressing, immediate data is a part of
instruction, and appears in the form of successive
byte or bytes. This mode contains a constant value or
an expression. E.g. MOV AH, 35H
MOV BX, 7A25H
 17

 3) Direct memory addressing:

 In this type of addressing mode, a 16-bit memory address (offset) is
directly specified in the instruction as a part of it. One of the operand
is the direct memory and other operand is the register.
 E.g. ADD AX, [5000H]
 Note: Here data resides in a memory location in the data
segment, whose effective address may be computed using
5000H as the Offset address and content of DS as segment
address. The effective address, here, is 10H*DS + 5000H.

 4) Direct offset addressing

 In this addressing, a variation of direct addressing uses arithmetic
operators to modify an address.
 E.g. ARR DB 15, 17, 18, 21
 MOV AL, ARR [2] ; MOV AL, 18
 ADD BH, ARR+3 ; ADD BH, 21
 18

5) Indirect memory addressing:

Indirect addressing takes advantage of
computer’s capability for segment: offset
addressing. The registers used for this
purpose are base register (BX and BP)
and index register (DI and SI)
E.g. MOV [BX], AL
ADD CX, [SI]
 19

6) Base displacement addressing:

This addressing mode also uses base registers
(BX and BP) and index register (SI and DI),
but combined with a displacement (a number
or offset value) to form an effective address.
E.g. MOV BX, OFFSET ARR
LEA BX, ARR
MOV AL, [BX +2]
ADD TBL [BX], CL
TBL [BX] [BX + TBL] e.g. [BX + 4]
 20

7) Base index addressing:

This addressing mode combines a base registers
(BX or BP) with an index register (SI or DI) to
form an effective address.
E.g. MOV AX, [BX +SI]
ADD [BX+DI], CL
8) Base index with displacement addressing
This addressing mode, a variation on base- index
combines a base register, an index register, and
a displacement to form an effective address.
E.g. MOV AL, [Bx+SI+2] ADD TBL [BX +SI], CH
 21

 9) String addressing:
 This mode uses index registers, where SI is used to point to the
first byte or word of the source string and DI is used to point to
the first byte or word of the destination string, when string
instruction is executed. The SI or DI is automatically
incremented or decremented to point to the next byte or word
depending on the direction flag (DF).
 E.g. MOVS, MOVSB, MOVSW
 Examples:
 TITLE Program to add ten numbers
 .MODEL SMALL
 .STACK 64
 .DATA
 ARR DB 73, 91, 12, 15, 79, 94, 55, 89 SUM DW ?
 .CODE MAIN PROC FAR
 MOV AX, @DATA MOV DS, AX
 22

 MOV CX, 10
 MOV AX, 0
 LEA BX, ARR
 L2: ADD Al, [BX]
 JNC L1
 INC AH
 L1: INC BX
 LOOP L2
 MOV SUM, AX
 MOV AX, 4C00H
 INT 21H
 MAIN ENDP
 END MAIN