Assembly Language for x86 Processors

7th Edition
Kip Irvine

Chapter 1: Basic Concepts

Slides prepared by the author

Revised by Zuoliu Ding at Fullerton College, 07/2014

(c) Pearson Education, 2015. All rights reserved. You may modify and copy this slide show for your personal use, or for
use in the classroom, as long as this copyright statement, the author's name, and the title are not changed.
 Chapter Overview

• Welcome to Assembly Language

• Specific Machine Levels
• Data Representation
• Boolean Operations

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 What is Assembler?

xyz.c / xyz.cpp xyz.asm

Compiler (cl.exe) Assembler (ml.exe)

xyz.obj xyz.obj

Linker (link.exe) Linker (link.exe)

xyz.exe xyz.exe

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 Assembly Language Applications

• Some representative types of applications:

• Business application for single platform
• Hardware device driver
• Business application for multiple platforms
• Embedded systems & computer games

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 Comparing ASM to High-Level Languages

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 What's Next

• Welcome to Assembly Language

• Specific Machine Levels
• Data Representation
• Boolean Operations

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 Translating Languages

English: Display the sum of A times B plus C.

C++: cout << (A * B + C);

one to many

Assembly Language: Intel Machine Language:

mov eax,A A1 00000000
mul B F7 25 00000004
add eax,C one to one
03 05 00000008
call WriteInt
E8 00500000

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 Specific Machine Levels

(descriptions of individual levels

follow . . . )

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 High-Level Language

• Level 4
• Application-oriented languages
• C++, Java, Pascal, Visual Basic . . .
• Programs compile into assembly language
(Level 3)

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 Assembly Language

• Level 3
• Instruction mnemonics that have a one-to-
one correspondence to machine language
• Programs are translated into Instruction Set
Architecture Level - machine language
(Level 2)

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 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA)

• Level 2
• Also known as conventional machine
language
• Executed by Level 1 (Digital Logic)

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 Digital Logic

• Level 1
• CPU, constructed from digital logic gates
• System bus
• Memory
• Implemented using bipolar transistors

next: Data Representation

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 What's Next

• Welcome to Assembly Language

• Specific Machine Levels
• Data Representation
• Boolean Operations

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 Data Representation
• Binary Numbers
• Translating between binary and decimal
• Binary Addition
• Integer Storage Sizes
• Hexadecimal Integers
• Translating between decimal and hexadecimal
• Hexadecimal subtraction
• Signed Integers
• Binary subtraction
• Character Storage

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 Binary Numbers
• Digits are 1 and 0
• 1 = true
• 0 = false
• MSB – most significant bit
• LSB – least significant bit

• Bit numbering:

MSB LSB
1011001010011100
15 0

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 Binary Numbers

• Each digit (bit) is either 1 or 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

• Each bit represents a power of 2: 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20

Every binary
number is a
sum of powers
of 2

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 Translating Binary to Decimal

Weighted positional notation shows how to calculate the

decimal value of each binary bit:
dec = (Dn-1  2n-1) + (Dn-2  2n-2) + ... + (D1  21) + (D0  20)
D = binary digit, 0 or 1

binary 00001001 = decimal 9:

(0  27)+(0 26)+(0 25)+(0 24)+(1  23)+(0 22)+(0 21)+ (1  20) = 9

0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 8 + 0 + 0 + 1 = 9

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 Translating Unsigned Decimal to Binary
• Repeatedly divide the decimal integer by 2. Each
remainder is a binary digit in the translated value:

37 = 100101

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 Binary Addition
• Starting with the LSB, add each pair of digits, include
the carry if present.

carry: 1

0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 (4)

+ 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 (7)

0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 (11)
bit position: 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

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 Integer Storage Sizes
byte 8

word 16
Standard sizes:
doubleword 32

quadword 64

What is the largest unsigned integer that may be stored in 20 bits? 1048475

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 Hexadecimal Integers
Binary values are represented in hexadecimal.

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 Translating Binary to Hexadecimal

• Each hexadecimal digit corresponds to 4 binary bits.

• Example: Translate the binary integer
101101010011110010100 to hexadecimal:

Try to separate: 0001,0110,1010,0111,1001,0100

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 Converting Hexadecimal to Decimal

• Multiply each digit by its corresponding power of 16:

dec = (D3  163) + (D2  162) + (D1  161) + (D0  160)

• Hex 1234 equals (1  163) + (2  162) + (3  161) + (4  160), or

decimal 4,660.

• Hex 3BA4 equals (3  163) + (11  162) + (10  161) + (4  160), or

decimal 15,268.
• Horner's rule: (((3  16) + 11)  16) + 10 ) 16) + 4

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 Powers of 16

Used when calculating hexadecimal values up to 8 digits

long:

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 Converting Decimal to Hexadecimal

decimal 422 = 1A6 hexadecimal

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 Hexadecimal Addition

• Divide the sum of two digits by the number base (16). The quotient
becomes the carry value, and the remainder is the sum digit.

1 1
36 28 28 6A
42 45 58 4B
78 6D 80 B5

21 / 16 = 1, rem 5

Important skill: Programmers frequently add and subtract the

addresses of variables and instructions.

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 Hexadecimal Subtraction

• When a borrow is required from the digit to the left, add 16

(decimal) to the current digit's value:

16 + 5 = 21

-1
C6 75
A2 47
24 2E

Practice: The address of var1 is 00400020. The address of the next

variable after var1 is 0040006A. How many bytes are used by var1?

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 Signed Integers
The highest bit indicates the sign. 1 = negative,
0 = positive

sign bit

What’s this? 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 0
Negative -10

0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 Positive +10

If the highest digit of a hexadecimal integer is > 7, the value is

negative. Eg. For byte 8A, C5, word A29D, dword B1234567

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 Forming the Two's Complement
• Negative numbers are stored in two's complement
notation
• Represents the additive Inverse

• Note that 00000001 + 11111111 = 00000000

• Two's Complement operation is reversible. Two's Complement of
11111111 is 00000001

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 Binary Subtraction
• When subtracting A – B, convert B to its two's
complement
• Add A to (–B)

00001100 00001100
– 00000011 +1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1
00001001 00001001

Practice: Subtract 0101 from 1001.

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 Learn How To Do the Following:
• Form 2's complement of a hexadecimal WORD: (-27197d)
• 6A3Dh  95C2h+1 95C3h
• Convert signed byte to decimal
• 11110000b  -16d What if unsigned?
• Convert signed decimal to binary, byte
• -43d: (43d  00101011b, 11010100b+1) 11010101b
• Convert signed decimal to hexadecimal byte
• -43d  D5h
• Convert signed hexadecimal byte to decimal
• D5h: (2Ah+1 = 2Bh) -43d

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 Ranges of Signed Integers

The highest bit is reserved for the sign. This limits the range:

10000000
Why? - 01111111

Practice: What is the largest positive value that may be stored in 20 bits?

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 What's Next

• Welcome to Assembly Language

• Specific Machine Levels
• Data Representation
• Boolean Operations

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 Boolean Operations

• NOT
• AND
• OR
• Operator Precedence
• Truth Tables

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 Boolean Algebra
• Based on symbolic logic, designed by George Boole
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Boole
• Boolean expressions created from:
• NOT, AND, OR

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 NOT

• Inverts (reverses) a boolean value

• Truth table for Boolean NOT operator:

Digital gate diagram for NOT:

NOT

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 AND
• Truth table for Boolean AND operator:

Digital gate diagram for AND:

AND

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 OR
• Truth table for Boolean OR operator:

Digital gate diagram for OR:

OR

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 Operator Precedence

• Examples showing the order of operations:

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 Truth Tables (1 of 3)
• A Boolean function has one or more Boolean inputs,
and returns a single Boolean output.
• A truth table shows all the inputs and outputs of a
Boolean function

Example: X  Y

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 Truth Tables (2 of 3)
• Example: X  Y

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 Truth Tables (3 of 3)
S

• Example: (Y  S)  (X  S)
X
mux Z
Y

Two-input multiplexer

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 Summary
• Assembly language helps you learn how software is
constructed at the lowest levels
• Assembly language has a one-to-one relationship
with machine language
• Each layer in a computer's architecture is an
abstraction of a machine
• layers can be hardware or software
• Boolean expressions are essential to the design of
computer hardware and software

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 The End

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