Directive statements to 8086

Assembly Language
 Program Statements

• instructions - symbolic operation code

• directive - pseudo-operation code
• Comments begin with semicolon
• Most assemblers are not case sensitive

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Program Data and Storage

• DB - byte(s)
• DW - word(s)
• DD - doubleword(s)

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 Naming Storage Locations

• Names can be associated

with storage locations
ANum DB -4
• ANum refers to a byte storage location,
x DW 17 initialized to FCh
UNO DW 1 • X is a word contains 17
y db ? • UNO is a word contains 1
• Y is an uninitialized byte
• These names are called
variables

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Arrays

• Any consecutive storage locations of the same size can be called an

array
X DW 40CH,10B,-13,0
Y DB 'This is an array'
Z DD -109236, FFFFFFFFH, -1, 100B

• Components of X are at X, X+2, X+4,X+6

• Components of Y are at Y, Y+1, …, Y+15
• Components of Z are at Z, Z+4, Z+8, Z+12

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DUP

• Allows a sequence of storage locations to be defined or reserved

X DB 40 DUP (?)
Y DW 10h DUP (0)
Z DB 3 dup (‘A’)

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Word Storage

• Word, and doubleword data are stored in reverse byte order

(in memory)

Directive Bytes in Storage

Z DW 256 00 01
Y DD 1234567H 67 45 23 01
X DW 35DAh DA 35

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EQU Directive

• name EQU expression

• expression can be string or numeric
• Use < and > to specify a string EQU
• these symbols cannot be redefined later in the program
sample EQU 7Fh
aString EQU <1.234>
message EQU <This is a message>

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 Program Segment Structure

• Data Segments • Stack Segment

• Storage for variables • used to set aside storage
• Variable addresses are for the stack
computed as offsets from • Stack addresses are
start of this segment computed as offsets into
• Code Segment this segment
• contains executable • Segment directives
instructions .data
.code
.stack size

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Memory Models

• .Model memory_model
• tiny: code+data <= 64K (.com program)
• small: code<=64K, data<=64K, one of each
• medium: data<=64K, one data segment, multiple code
• compact: code<=64K, one code segment, multiple data
• large: multiple code and data segments
• huge: allows individual arrays to exceed 64K
• flat: no segments, 32-bit addresses, protected mode only (80386
and higher)

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Dosseg

• Dosseg directive : tells the assembler that we want the

segments of our program loaded in a very specific order.
• Code segment first and stack segment last

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Program Skeleton
dosseg
.model small
.stack 100H • Select a memory model
.data • Define the stack size
;declarations • Declare variables
.code • Write code
Mov ax,@data • organize into procedures
Mov ds,ax • Mark the end of the source file
Instructions…

Name1 proc
Proc inst.
Name1 endp
end

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