8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Every instruction in the 8086 requires a definite number of

clock cycles for its execution. The amount of time for
execution of an instruction is obtained by multiplying the
number of clock cycles required for the execution the
instruction, with the clock period at which the 8086 is running.
The steps for writing a time delay program are as follows:
(i) Find the exact time delay (td) required for the given
application.
(ii) Select the instructions to be included in the time delay
program. While selecting the instructions and registers to
be used in the delay program, care must be taken that the
execution of these instructions does-not affect the main
program execution. That is, any memory location or
register used by the main program must not be altered by
time delay program. If a register used in the main program
is needed in the delay program, the content of that
register is pushed into a stack before executing the time
delay program. At the end of the execution of the time
program, its original value will be popped from the stack
and then control will be transferred to the main program.
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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

(iii) Find the period of the clock at which the microprocessor is

running by taking the reciprocal of the 8086s clock frequency.
T is the duration of one clock period of clock state.
(iv) Find the number of clock states required for execution of
each of the instructions in the time-delay program. Then find
the number of clock states (m) needed to execute the loop in
the delay program once, by adding the clock states required
for each instruction in the delay program.

(v) Find the number of times (i.e., count n) the loop in the
delay program has to be executed by dividing the required
time delay (td) by the time taken to execute the loop once,
which is m X T
Count (n) = td/ (m X T)
The time delay obtained using this method is sufficiently
accurate to be used in many problems. When more accurate
delays are required, the programmable timer IC 8253 or the
8254 can be used.
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Assistant Professor

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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Example: Write a time delay program to generate a delay of

120ms in an 8086 based system that runs on a 10Mhz
frequency clock.
Solution:
The time delay program is as follows:

L1:

Instruction

T-states for execution

MOV BX, Count

DEC BX

NOP

JNZ L1

16

RET

In this program, the instructions DEC BX, NOP, and JNZ L1

form the loop as they are executed repeatedly until BX
becomes zero. Once BX becomes zero, the 8086 returns to the
main program.

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Assistant Professor

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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Example: Write a time delay program to generate a delay of

120ms in an 8086 based system that runs on a 10Mhz
frequency clock.
Solution (continued):
Number of clock cycles for execution of the loop once
(m) = 2 + 3 + 16 = 21
Time required for the execution of loop once = m X T =
21 X 1/(10 X 10^6)
= 2.1 s
Count = td/(m X T) = 120 X 10^-3 /(2.1 X 10^-6)
= 57143 = DF37h
By loading DF37h in BX, the time taken to execute the delay
program is approximately 120ms. The NOP included in the
delay program is to increase the execution time of the loop. To
get more delay, the number of NOP instructions in the delay
loop can be increased. The exact delay obtained using this
time delay subroutine can be calculated as shown in the next
slide.
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Assistant Professor

NIT Delhi

8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Example: Write a time delay program to generate a delay of

120ms in an 8086 based system that runs on a 10Mhz
frequency clock.
Solution (continued):
The MOV BX, Count
& RET instructions in the delay program are executed only
once. The JNZ instruction takes 16 T-states when the
condition is satisfied (i.e. Z = 0) and four T states when the
condition is not satisfied, which occurs only once.

Exact delay = [4 x 0.1 + (2+3) x 57143 x 0.1 + 16 x 57142

x0.1 + 4 X 0.1 + 8 X 0.1 ] s
= 0.4 + 28571.5 + 91427.2 + 0.4 + 0.8
= 120000.3 s = 120.0003 ms
The error in the previous calculation is very less as the exact
delay is also very close to 120ms. When 16-bit count register
is used in the delay program, the maximum count value that
can be loaded in it is FFFFh. This may put a limitation on the
maximum time delay that can be generated using the above
delay subroutine.
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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Example: Write a delay program to create a time delay of

240ms. Assume that 5Mhz clock is used with 8086. Following
is given:
Instruction

No. of T-states

MOV BX, Immediate

DEC Register

NOP

JNZ Label

16

RET

Solution: td = 240 X 10^-3 seconds

One T-state time period = 1/(5 X 10^-6) sec
= 0.2 s
No. of T-states in one loop , m = 21
No. of times to run the loop, Count =
(240 X 10^-3)/ (0.2 X 10^-6 X 21) = 57143D
= DF37h
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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Example: Write a delay program to create a time delay of

240ms. Assume that 5Mhz clock is used with 8086. Following
is given:
Solution(continued):

NEXT

;Description

;No of T-states

MOV BX, DF37h

DEC BX

NOP

JNZ NEXT

16

RET

The exact delay = (Generated Delay) + (4+8

12)*0.2s = approximately the same !

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8086 Microprocessor

Writing Time Delay Programs

Self Practice Problem: Write a delay program to create a time

delay of five minutes. Assume that a 10 Mhz clock is used with
8086. Given that
Instruction

No. of T-states

MOV BX, Immediate

DEC Register

NOP

JNZ Label

16

RET

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8086 Microprocessor

Assembler Directives

An assembler is a program that is used to convert an

assembly language program into an equivalent machine
language program. The assembler finds the address of
each label and substitutes the value of each constant
and variable in the assembly language program during
the assembly process, to generate the machine
language code. While performing these operations, the
assembler may find syntax errors. They are reported to
the programmer at the end of the assembly process. The
logical and other programming errors are not found by
the assembler. For completing these tasks the
assembler needs some commands from the programmer
the required storage class for a particular constant or
a variable such as byte, word, or double word, the
logical name of the segments such as CODE, STACK, or
DATA, the type of procedures or routines such as FAR,
NEAR, PUBLIC, or EXTRN, the end of a segment etc.
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8086 Microprocessor

Assembler Directives

These types of commands are given to the assembler

using a predefined alphabetical strings called Assembler
directives.
Assembler directives are directions for the assembler,
and not the instructions for the 8086.
The Assembler used for this course is EMU8086*

*Note: Different assemblers may have different directives.

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Assembler Directives for variable and

Constant Definition
The Assembler directives for variable and constant definition
are as follows:
(i) DB, DW, DD, DQ, and DT: the directives DB (define byte),
DW(define word), DD(define double word), DQ (define quad
word), and DT (define ten bytes) are used to reserve one byte,
one word (i.e. 2 bytes), one double word(i.e. 2 words), one
quad word(i.e. 4 words) and ten bytes in memory,
respectively for storing constants, variables, or strings.

8086 Microprocessor

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Assembler Directives for variable and

Constant Definition

8086 Microprocessor

Example:
DATA 1 DB 20h

; Reserve one byte for storing

; DATA1 and assign the value 20h
; to it.

ARRAY DB 10h, 20h,

30h

; Reserve three bytes for storing

ARRAY1 and initialize it with the
values
; 10h, 20h and 30h

CITY DB NARELA

;Store the ASCII code of the

characters
; specified within double quotes in
the
; array or a list named CITY

DATA2 DW 1020h

; Reserve one word for storing

;DATA2 and Assign the value 1020
;to it.

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Assembler Directives for variable and

Constant Definition
The directive DUP (duplicate) is used to reserve a series of
bytes, words, double words, or ten bytes and is used with DB,
DW, DD and DT, respectively. The reserved area can be either
filled with a specific value or left uninitialized.
Example:

8086 Microprocessor

Array DB 20 DUP(0)

;Reserve 20 bytes in the memory

; for the array named ARRAY and
; initialize all the elements of the
; array to 0 (due to presence of 0
; within the bracket near the DUP
; directive

ARRAY1 DB 25 DUP (?)

; Reserve 25 bytes in the memory

; for the array named ARRAY1 and
; keep all the elements of the array
; uninitialized (due to the question
; mark present within the bracket near
the DUP directive)

ARRAY2 DB 50 DUP
(64h)

;
;
;
;

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Reserves 50 bytes in the memory

for the array named ARRAY2 and
initializes all the elements of the
array to 64h
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Assembler Directives for variable and

Constant Definition
(ii) EQU: The directive EQU(equivalent) is used to assign a
value to a data name.
Example:

8086 Microprocessor

NUMBER EQU 50h

; Assign the value 50h to NUMBER.

NAME EQU RAMESH

; Assign the string RAMESH to NAME.

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:
(i) ORG: The ORG (origin) directive directs the assembler to
start the memory allocation for a particular segment (data,
code, or stack) form the declared offset address in the ORG
statement. While starting the assembly process for a
memory segment, the assembler initializes a location
counter (LC) to keep track of the allotted offset addresses
for the segment. When the ORG directive is not mentioned ,
LC is initialized with the offset address 0000h. When the
ORG directive is mentioned at the beginning of the
statement, LC is initialized with the offset address specified
in the ORG directive.
Example:
ORG 100h
When this directive is placed at the beginning of the code
segment, the location counter is initialized with 0100h and the
first instruction is stored from the offset address 0100h within
the code segment. If it is placed in the data segment, the next
data storage starts from the offset address 0100h within the
data segment.

8086 Microprocessor

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:

8086 Microprocessor

(ii) EVEN: The EVEN directive updates the location

counter to next even address, if the current location
counter content is not an even number.
Example:
ARRAY2 DW 20 DUP (0)
These statements in a segment declare an array
named ARRAY2 having 20 words, starting at an even
address. The advantage of storing an array of words
starting at an even address is that the 8086 takes just
one memory read/write cycle to read/write the entire
word, if the word is stored starting at an even address.
Otherwise, the 8086 takes two memory read/write
cycles to read/write to read/write the word.
Example: on next slide ..

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:

8086 Microprocessor

Example:
EVEN
RESULT

PROC NEAR

..
RESULT

; Instructions in the
;RESULT Procedure
ENDP

Here the procedure RESULT, which is of type NEAR, is

stored starting at an even address in the code segment.
The ENDP directive indicates the end of the RESULT
procedure.

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:

8086 Microprocessor

(iii) LENGTH: This directive is used to determine the

length of an array or string in bytes.
Example:
MOV CX, LENGTH ARRAY
CX is loaded with the number of bytes in the ARRAY.
(iv) OFFSET: This operator is used to determine the
offset of a data item in a segment containing it.
Example:
MOV BX, OFFSET TABLE
If the data item named TABLE is present in the data
segment, this statement places the offset address of
TABLE, in the BX register.

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:

8086 Microprocessor

(v) LABEL: The LABEL directive is used to assign a name

to the current value in the location counter. It is used to
specify the destination of the branch-related
instructions such as jump and call. When LABEL is used
to specify the destination, it is necessary to specify
whether it is NEAR or FAR. When the destination is in
the same segment, the label is specified as NEAR and
when the destination is in another segment, it is
specified as FAR.
Example:
REPEAT

LABEL NEAR

CALCULATE

LABEL FAR

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Assembler Directives Related to

Code(Program) Location
The Assembler directives related to Code location:

8086 Microprocessor

LABEL can also be used to specify a data item. When it

is used to specify a data item, the type of data item
must be specified. The data may have the type byte or
word.
Example:
A stack segment having 100 words of data is defined
using the following statements:
STACK SEGMENT
DW 100 DUP (0)

; Reserve 100 words for

; Stack

STACK_TOP LABEL WORD

STACK ENDS
The second statement reserves 100 words in the stack segment and
fills them with 0. The third statement assigns the name STACK_TOP to
the location present just after the hundredth word. The offset address
of this label can then be assigned to the stack pointer in the code
segment using the following statement:
MOV SP, OFFSET STACK_TOP
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Assembler Directives for Segment

Declaration
The Assembler directives for segment declaration

8086 Microprocessor

(i) SEGMENT and ENDS: The SEGMENT and ENDS

directives indicate the start and end of a segment,
respectively. In some cases, the segment may be
assigned a type such as PUBLIC (i.e. , it can be used
by other modules of the program while linking) or
GLOBAL (i.e. it can be accessed by any other
module). Example:
CODE 1 SEGMENT

; Instructions of CODE 1
segment

CODE 1 ENDS

This example indicates the declaration of a code

segment named CODE 1.

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Assembler Directives for Segment

Declaration
The Assembler directives for segment declaration

8086 Microprocessor

(ii) ASSUME: The ASSUME directive is used to inform the

assembler, the name of the logical segments to be
assumed for different segments used in the program.
ASSUME CS : CODE 1, DS: DATA1

This statement informs the assembler that the segment

address where the logical segments CODE1 and DATA1
are loaded in memory during execution is to be stored in
CS and DS registers, respectively.

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Assembler Directives for Segment

Declaration
The Assembler directives for segment declaration

8086 Microprocessor

(iii) GROUP: This directive is used to form a logical

group of segments with a similar purpose. The
Assembler passes information to the linker/loader to
form the code, such that the group declared segments
or operands lie within a 64 Kb memory segment. All
such segments can be addressed using the same
segment address. Example:
PROGRAM1 GROUP CODE1, DATA1, STACK1

This statement directs the loader/linker to prepare an

executable file (.exe) such that the CODE1, DATA1, and
STACK1 segments lie within a 64KB memory segment
that is named PROGRAM1.

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Assembler Directives for Segment

Declaration
The Assembler directives for segment declaration

8086 Microprocessor

(iv) SEG: This segment operator is used to decide the

segment address of the label, variable, or procedure and
substitute the segment address in place of the SEG
label.
Example:
MOV AX, SEG ARRAY1

; Load the segment address in

which ARRAY1 is present, in AX

MOV DS, AX

; Move the contents of AX to DS.

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Assembler Directives for declaring

procedures
The Assembler directives for declaring procedures:
(i) PROC : The PROC directive indicates the start of a named
procedure. The NEAR and FAR directive specify the type of
the procedure: Example:

8086 Microprocessor

SQUARE_ROOT PROC NEAR

This statement indicates the beginning of a procedure named
SQUARE_ROOT, which is to be called by a program located in
the same segment. The FAR directive is used for procedures to
be called by the programs present in code segments other
than the one in which this procedure is present. For example,
SALARY PROC FAR indicates the beginning of a FAR type
procedure named SALARY.

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Assembler Directives for declaring

procedures
The Assembler directives for declaring procedures:
(ii) ENDP: The ENDP directive is used to indicate the end of a
procedure. To mark the end of a particular procedure, the
name of the procedure may appear as prefix with the directive
ENDP. Example:

8086 Microprocessor

SALARY PROC NEAR

;Procedure

; Code of SALARY

SALARY ENDP

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Assembler Directives for declaring

procedures
The Assembler directives for declaring procedures:
(iii) EXTRN and PUBLIC: The directive EXTRN (external)
informs the assembler that the procedures, label/labels, and
names declared after this directive has/have already been
defined in some other segments and in the segments where
they actually appear, they must be declared in public, using
the PUBLIC directive. Example:

8086 Microprocessor

MODULE1 SEGMENT
PUBLIC SQURE_ROOT
SQUARE_ROOT PROC FAR
.

; CODE OF SQUARE_ROOT
PROCEDURE

SQUARE_ROOT ENDP
MODULE1 ENDS
; Code continued on next
; slide
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Assembler Directives for declaring

procedures
The Assembler directives for declaring procedures:
(iii) EXTRN and PUBLIC (continued):

8086 Microprocessor

MODULE2 SEGMENT
EXTRN SQUARE_ROOT FAR

; CODE OF MODULE2

CALL SQUARE_ROOT

MODULE 2 ENDS

NOTE:

If one wants to call the procedure named SQUARE_ROOT appearing in MODULE1

from MODULE2, it must be declared using the statement PUBLIC SQUARE_ROOT in MODULE1
and it must be declared external using the statement EXTRN SQUARE_ROOT in MODULE2. If a
jump or a call address is external, it must be represented as NEAR or FAR. If data are defined
as external, their size must be represented as BYTE, WORD, or DWORD.

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Assembler Directives for declaring

procedures
The Assembler directives for declaring procedures:
(iii) EXTRN and PUBLIC (continued):

8086 Microprocessor

MODULE2 SEGMENT
EXTRN SQUARE_ROOT FAR

; CODE OF MODULE2

CALL SQUARE_ROOT

MODULE 2 ENDS

NOTE:

If one wants to call the procedure named SQUARE_ROOT appearing in MODULE1

from MODULE2, it must be declared using the statement PUBLIC SQUARE_ROOT in MODULE1
and it must be declared external using the statement EXTRN SQUARE_ROOT in MODULE2. If a
jump or a call address is external, it must be represented as NEAR or FAR. If data are defined
as external, their size must be represented as BYTE, WORD, or DWORD.

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8086 Microprocessor

Other Assembler Directives

PTR

The PTR(pointer) operator is used to declare the

type of label, variable, or memory operand.

Examples:

INC BYTE PTR[SI]

;Increment the byte contents of the memory
location addressed by SI
INC WORD PTR [BX]
;Increment the word contents of the memory
location addressed by BX

GLOBAL

The labels, variables, constants, or procedures

declared GLOBAL may be used by other modules
of the program.

Example:

GLOBAL DATA1, DATA2, ARRAY1

; above statement declares the variables DATA1,
; DATA2, and ARRAY1 as GLOBAL variables

LOCAL

The label, variables, constants, or procedures

declared LOCAL in a module are to be used only
by that particular module.

Example:

LOCAL DATA1, DATA2, ARRAY1, A1, A2

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8086 Microprocessor

Other Assembler Directives

NAME

The NAME directive is used to assign a name to

an assembly language program module. The
module may now be referred to by its declared
name. The names, if selected properly, may
indicate the function of the different modules,
and hence help in good documentation.

SHORT

The SHORT operator indicates to the assembler

the only one byte is required to code the
displacement for a jump (i.e. the displacement is
within -128 to +127 bytes from the address of
the byte present next to the JMP instruction)

TYPE

The TYPE operator directs the assembler to

decide the data type of the specified label and
replaces the TYPE label with the decided data
type. For the word type variable, the data type is
2. For the double word type, its 4, and for the
byte type its 1.

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8086 Microprocessor

MACRO and ENDM

Suppose a number of instructions occur repeatedly in the

main program, the program listing becomes lengthy. In such
a situation, a macro definition, i.e. a label, is assigned with
the repeatedly appearing string of instructions. The process
of assigning a label or macro name to the repeatedly
appearing string of instructions is called macro definition.
The macro name is then used throughout the main program
to refer to that string of instructions.
; Defining a MACRO
CALCULATE MACRO
MOV AX, [BX]
ADD AX, [BX + 2]
MOV [SI], AX
ENDM
; CALCULATE is the macro name and the macro is used to add two
successive data in the memory, whose offset address is present in
BX and the result is stored in the memory at the offset address in
SI.
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8086 Microprocessor

Passing parameters to a MACRO

Using parameters in macro definition, the programmer

specifies the parameters of the macro that are likely to be
changed each time the macro is called. The macro given
before (CALCULATE) can be modified to calculate the result
for the different sets of data and store it in a different
memory locations as follows:
CALCULATE MACRO OPERAND, RESULT
MOV BX, OFFSET OPERAND
MOV AX, [BX]
ADD AX, [BX + 2]

MOV SI, OFFSET RESULT

MOV [SI], AX
ENDM

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8086 Microprocessor

Example Programs (using Directives)

1. Program to find the average of 10 byte-type data stored in

an array in data segment.
ASSUME CS: CODE1, DS: DATA1

DATA1 SEGMENT

;data segment
; starts

ARRAY DB 12h, 23h, 44h, 56h,

0ABh, 73h, 44h, 0ABh, 0EEh,
0Ah

; 10 bytes are
; stored

COUNT EQU 10

; Count is the
; number of bytes
; in the array

AVERAGE DB 01 DUP(0)

;Reserve one byte

; to store the
result

DATA1 ENDS

; data segment
; ends

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8086 Microprocessor

Example Programs (using Directives)

1. Program to find the average of 10 byte-type data stored in

an array in data segment (continued).

START:

CODE1 SEGMENT

; Code segment
; starts

MOV AX, DATA1

; Segment address
of DATA1 is moved
to AX

MOV DS, AX

; MOV AX contents
to DS

MOV SI, OFFSET ARRAY

; Move offset
; address of
ARRAY to SI

XOR AX, AX

; Clear AX and
Carry
; Flag

MOV BX, 0000h

; Clear BX

MOV CX, COUNT

; Move COUNT to
CX

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8086 Microprocessor

Example Programs (using Directives)

1. Program to find the average of 10 byte-type data stored in

an array in data segment (continued).
NEXT:

MOV BL, [SI]

; Move one byte

; from array into
BL

ADD AX, BX

; Add AX and BX

INC SI

; Increment SI to
point to next byte

LOOP NEXT

; Repeat Loop
; NEXT CX times

MOV DH, COUNT

; MOV Count to DH

DIV DH

;Divide AX by CH

MOV AVERAGE, AL

; Store AL contents
; in AVERAGE

CODE1 ENDS

;Code Segment
ends

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8086 Microprocessor

Self Exercise Program (using Directives)

2. Write a Program to find the parity of a given word-type

data. If the parity is even, store 00h in BL register, and if the
parity is odd, store 01h in BL register.

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