Day 1

x86 Assembly ?

	Yep, Assembly Language on the PC. More specifically, 16bit Assembly using BIOS
and MS-DOS. I'll assume that you are using A86, which you can get here.

Some Assumptions
	
	In addition to the A86 Assembler, I assume that you either are good at learning
new instructions/syntax from context of other things. It wouldn't hurt to know ASM on another
platform either.

The x86 Processors
	The x86 processors are a group that run anywhere from 10-3000 MHz (Note: That
I include the Pentium chips in these.). They have much less CPU registers than CPUs used
in other systems (such as game consoles), the registers are:

	AX - Accumulator, implicitly used in some math instructions.
	BX - Base register, also used in some math instructions.
	CX - Count register, used implicitly with the Loop instruction.
	DX - Data register, also used in some math instructions.
	CS - Points to the current memory segment that is currently being executed.
	DS - Points to the data segment of the program (same as CS for us.)
	SS - Points to the stack segment of the program (")
	ES - A scratch segment pointer.
	BP - Points to the base of the built-in CPU stack.
	SP - Points to the top of the built-in CPU stack.
	IP - Points to the location of the currently executing statement (can't explicitly access IP).

	All registers can really be used by us for anything, except for certain instructions leave
their results in certain registers. Also, IP you can't do anything to with code explicitly, the only
way to change it is with JUMPing instructions, and you can't read it either.

Registers and Numbers
	The single most important instruction is MOV (for MOVe), MOV moves anything between registers.
Here's some examples:
	
	mov ax,3 ; Anything that follows a ';' is a comment and is ignored by the assembler. This is AX = 3.
	mov ax,bx  ; AX = BX;
	mov ax,[bx] ; AX = *BX; if you know C, if you don't, go away before I hit you with a trout.
	; More on ^ this later.

I hope you get the idea by now, however, there's one small thing you should know:

	mov es,3 ; you can't just put a number into a segment register, you have to do it like this:

				mov ax,3
				mov es,ax  ; you don't have to use AX, of course, you could use any. (AX,BX,CX,DX).

The Stack
	I'll assume you know what a stack is, you put a number at the beginning, (a push), and then
when you're done putting numbers ontop of one another, you start taking them off the top (a pop). So
when you finish they are in reverse order. (If you know what a stack is, skip to next paragraph). Image
a stack of lunch trays, you put one on, put another on. The first one to go on, is the last one to come
off. FILO (First In Last Out) is the semi-techinical word/description for a stack.

	The 2 most important instructions for the Stack (quite well named, in fact) are PUSH and POP, 
	examples:
		push ax ; AX onto stack
		push dx ; DX onto stack

		pop bx  ; pop into BX
		pop cx  ; pop into CX
	
This Day In Review

	Tomorrow, we'll get to assembling a program that actually gives output!

	Happy coding,
		-Mike H a.k.a GbaGuy


Intro - Day 2