IBM PC Assembly Language Tutorial 2

IBM PC Assembly Language Tutorial 2

Steps to becoming ASSEMBLER-LITERATE

1. Learn the 8086 architecture and most of the instruction set. Learn

what you need to know and ignore what you don't. Reading: The

8086 Primer by Stephen Morse, published by Hayden. You need to

read only two chapters, the one on machine organization and the

one on the instruction set.

2. Learn about a few simple DOS function calls. Know what services

the operating system provides. If appropriate, learn a little about

other systems too. It will aid portability later on. Reading:

appendices D and E of the PC DOS manual.

3. Learn enough about the MACRO assembler and the LINKer to

write some simple things that really work. Here, too, the main thing

is figuring out what you don't need to know. Whatever you do, don't

study the sample programs distributed with the assembler unless

you have nothing better!

4. At the same time as you are learning the assembler itself, you will

need to learn a few tools and concepts to properly combine your

assembler code with the other things you do. If you plan to call

assembler subroutines from a high level language, you will need to

study the interface notes provided in your language manual.

Usually, this forms an appendix of some sort. If you plan to package

your assembler routines as .COM programs you will need to learn to

do this. You should also learn to use DEBUG.

5. Read the Technical Reference, but very selectively. The most

important things to know are the header comments in the BIOS

listing. Next, you will want to learn about the RS 232 port and

maybe about the video adapters.