Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Course Code: CSE341 Credits: 1.5

Course Name: Microprocessors Semester: Spring’25

Lab 02
Basic I/O, Advanced Arithmetic Operations and Flags

I. Topic Overview:
Instructions used to communicate with peripherals are called interrupts. There are many
interrupts each dealing with a particular task. Students will familiarize themselves with the basic
input output mechanisms of the assembly language. They will be looking into one of the most
common interrupts, INT 21H and inquire how this very interrupt can be used for single key input,
single key output and multiple characters output. Additionally, they’ll perform some arithmetic
operations upon taking inputs from the user.

II. Lesson Fit:

There is a prerequisite to this lab. Students must have a basic idea on the following
concepts:
a. Registers
b. Some basic operations such as MOV, ADD, SUB, MUL and DIV
c. Character encoding using ASCII

III. Learning Outcome:

After this lecture, the students will be able to:
a. Perform I/O operations to make their assembly programs more interactive
b. Write more dynamic assembly programs
c. Familiarize themselves with how flag register works

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IV. Anticipated Challenges and Possible Solutions
a. Students may find it difficult to map ASCII values to decimal/hex
Solutions:
i. Looking at the ASCII table may help

V. Acceptance and Evaluation

Students will show their progress as they complete each problem. They will be marked
according to their class performance. There may be students who might not be able to finish all
the tasks, they will submit them later and give a viva to get their performance mark. A deduction
of 30% marks is applicable for late submission. The marks distribution is as follows:

Code: 50%
Viva: 50%

VI. Activity Detail:

a.​ Hour: 1

Discussing: Basic Input and Output

In order to carry out basic I/O operation, function specific values need to be kept
in AH register before calling INT 21h which is used for a system call. The
function dispatcher maps the value to carry out specific functions.

SN Register Value (decimal) Used For

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AH 1 Single Character Input
2
AH 2 Single Character Output

3 AH 9 String Output

Note: INT 21H call changes AX/AL. So if we have any value stored in AL we have to save it
somewhere else before calling INT 21H

i) Single Character Input

We start by moving the decimal 1 to AH register and call Interrupt 21H. Upon running the
program will wait for the user to give an input (Any Single character). The input will be stored in
AL register

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 User given input will be saved in the AL
register as ASCII value. To do arithmetic
operations from a numeric input, an ascii to
numeric conversion is needed.

ii) Single Character Output

The character to be printed must be in the DL register. Then we move decimal 2 to the AH
register and call Interrupt 21H

The ASCII value of the desired output should

be in the DL register. Here by moving A to DL
we are moving the ascii value of A (65) to DL
register.
MOV DL, 65 would also print A

iii) String Output

A string is an array of characters. To show a string output we must define the string in the data
segment.

$ = This dollar sign is called a String

Terminator. It denotes the end of the string
which is needed.

The values of variables and arrays are stored in the data segment of the memory. In order to
fetch them we need the offset address (offset + segment). To print a string we need to store 9 in
AH. While 9 is in AH, INT 21H expects DX to hold the offset address of the array/variable.

LEA is the name of the instruction that provides the offset address. LEA stands for Load
Effective Address. The syntax for using LEA is:
LEA destination, source.
Source is the memory address (the array or the variable) whose offset address will be saved in
the destination. The destination is a general register.

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 This will print CSE341 on the emulator
screen. Notice that if we do this multiple times
the output is shown on the same line. It does
not automatically go to the next line.

Printing on New Line:

We must move the cursor to the next line by executing Line Feed and Carriage Return. Like
every other single character, we have to print their corresponding ascii values.
Carriage Return (cret) = 10d or 0DH
Line Feed (newl) = 13d or 0AH

Full Example:

Problem Task: Task 01-04(Page 6-7).

b. Hour: 2

Discussion:
Check the problem tasks while the students continue with the rest.
Problem Task: Task 05-09(Page 7-8).

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c. Hour: 3

Discussion: Flag register

There is one special type of register called the flag register. It contains flags. Flags are bits of
information which indicate the state of the processor after an arithmetic operation. Decisions are
made by the processor based on the flags. Flags are of two types:

1. Status Flags: The processor uses these flags to reflect the result of an operation.
2. Control Flags: These are used to enable/disable certain operations of the CPU.

15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

OF DF IF TF SF ZF AF PF CF

Bit number 10, 9 and 8 are control flags and the rest non-empty bits are status flags. The
empty bits have no significance.

Status Flags

Carry Flag (CF): CF = 1 when there is a carry out from the MSB during addition or a borrow into
the MSB during subtraction.

Parity Flag (PF): PF = 1 when the low byte of a result of an operation contains an even number
of ones.

Auxiliary Flag (AX): AX = 1 when there is a carry out from bit number 3 to bit number 4 in
addition or borrow into bit number 3 during subtraction. (Note that the bit number starts from
0).

Zero Flag (ZF): ZF = 1, if the result of an operation in 0.

Sign Flag (SF): SF = 1 when the MSB of a signed number is 1.

Overflow Flag (OF): OF = 1 when there is an overflow. There are 3 types of overflows:- Signed
Only, Unsigned Only and Both. To understand overflow, you must know by now that 1111b has 2
different meanings in the context of unsigned and signed numbers. If you are not clear about
this please read the DLD book.
An example of unsigned overflow where the maximum number of bits is 4,
1111 + 1000 = 10111

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Here the MSB gets discarded and thus data loss. As an example of signed overflow where the
maximum range is 8 bits. For signed numbers the MSB represents the sign. 1 for negative and
0 for positive.
0111 1111 + 0111 1111 = 1111 1110
Both the operands start with 0 therefore both are positive numbers. Addition of 2 positive
numbers have to be positive. But if we look at the answer, it starts with 1 therefore the number is
a negative number.

How instructions affect flags:

Instructions Affected Flags

MOV None

ADD/SUB All

INC/DEC All (Except CF)

NEG All (CF =1; Unless result is 0 and OF= 1, if

the operand is 8000H and 80H)

It has been previously mentioned that the processor takes decisions based on the flags. In this
section we will see how these decisions are made. In JAVA, decisions are made using "if"
conditions. If the condition is satisfied then a portion of code runs and if not, the program jumps
to another section of code. In assembly this whole system is done by two operations-
compare(CMP) and jump(JMP). The jump can be condition dependent and also independent.
Problem Task: Task 10-12(Page 8).

VII. Home Tasks (All the unfinished lab tasks)

Lab 2 Activity List

Task 01
Take a character input and display it. Display the message "Please insert a character: " before
taking an input.

Task 02
Perform addition/subtraction/division/multiplication by taking inputs from the user.
Note: Display appropriate messages when taking input and showing the output.

Task 03
Write instructions to do the following.
a. Read a character, and display it at the next position on the same line.

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b. Read an uppercase letter (omit error checking), and display it at the next position on the
same line in lower case.

Task 04
Read an uppercase letter (omit error checking), and display it at the next position on the next
line in lower case.

Task 05
Write a program to:
(a) display a "?"
(b) read two decimal digits whose sum is less than 10,
(c) display them and their sum on the next line, with an appropriate message.

Sample execution:
?27
THE SUM OF 2 AND 7 IS 9

Task 06
Write a program to:
(a) prompt the user, (b) read first, middle, and last initials of a person's name, and then display
them down the left margin.

Sample execution:
ENTER THREE INITIALS: JFK
J
F
K

Task 07
Write a program to read one of the hex digits A-F, and display it on the next line in decimal.

Sample execution:
ENTER A HEX DIGIT: C
IN DECIMAL IT IS 12

Task 08
Write a program to display a 10 x 10 solid box of asterisks.
HINT: Declare a string in the data segment that specifies the box, and display it with INT 21h,
function 9h

Task 09
Write a program that takes two multi digit decimal numbers as input and performs ADD
operations between them.

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Task 10
ADD AL, BL. Where AL contains 80h, BL contains 80h. Identify the status of different status
flags.

Task 11
Suppose that AX and BX both contain positive numbers and ADD AX, BX is executed. Show
that there is a carry into the MSB but no carry out of the MSB if, and only if, signed over
flow occurs.

Task 12
Suppose AX and BX both contain negative numbers, and ADD AX,BX is executed. Show that
there is a carry out of the MSB but no carry into the MSB if, and only if, signed overflow occurs.