Questions tagged [assembly]
Programming questions are off-topic here. Do not ask questions about how to write code in assembly. However, conceptual questions about how coding in assembly is different may be appropriate. See our help centre for the scope of this site.
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I'm having trouble storing the value in R0 into the correct memory location (LC-3 Assembly)
Here is my LC-3 Assembly code.
It is designed to add up the 10 values in x3100 through x3109 and store them in x310A.
It correctly adds the values, storing the total in R0, however I cannot seem to ...
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Why do we shift by three in RISC-V loops?
In this youtube video, the instructor explained some basic code in RISC-V assembly, but i didn't understand why in the first line, he is shifting i by 3. Why do we have to multiply it by 8??
I feel ...
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In theory, is it impossible, or possible (although ridiculously impractical), to inline recursive functions?
In an older question I asked about stack, the statement came up that recursive functions cannot be inlined (link). I am interested in whether this statement is actually true or not. I understand that ...
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Stack Program Counter
I am trying to understand stacks a little better.
I don't understand why the content of the program counter is saved on the stack for the function call (call), but not for a jump (jmp)?
can someone ...
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Why is static recompilation not possible?
I'm researching static recompilation but there doesn't seem to be too much information about the subject. I've heard that dynamic recompilation (emulation) can be up to 6 times slower than native ...
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RISCV Mem Virtualization: Sv57x4 58-bit VA is longer than 56-bit PA, how to form it?
I'm exploring RISCV Priveleged Spec and got confused with memory virtualization (especially hypervisor part and two-stage addr translation).
How can we form Sv57x4 Virtual Address (VA) for G-stage if ...
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Is the executable always loaded to the same place in the text segment?
I am reading a book about data architecture, and I am wondering about the text segment and the memory adresses.
In one example(assembly using ARM) where the code was compiled there were adresses to ...
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Why scopes in general do not have prologue and epilogue instructions?
Data only accessible in a scope, seems to still be maintained by the stack. What is the reason that entering and exiting scopes (in general) does not do the same "prologue and epilogue" ...
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Is solving Binary String Matching equivalent to Solving All type of string matching?
This might be an irritating, naive question, but please bear with me. If an algorithm/code solves the string matching problem for a binary string, does not it imply that the algo/code actually solves ...
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Decomposing large bit mult or exp into smaller bit operations
Imagine a machine that can only hold N-bit values (N-bit uint).
The machine can also calculate the 2N-bit result of two operations: mult, exp.
The 2N-bit result is stored across 2 N-bit values (high/...
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Approximate x*(a/b)^(c/d) using integer arithmetic only (assembler)
0 < x,a,b,c,d < M are all positive integers (uint64).
also, a<b if that helps.
we have assembler (integer only) operations available (e.g. division only yields integers).
we want to ...
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Are all CPU computations done using registers?
From my understanding, a CPU register is a temporary storage or working location built into the CPU itself. The CPU includes some functional units such as the ALU (which is part of the chip, as far as ...
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Boot Loaders, Boot Sectors, BIOS, and GRUB
Again, I must apologize if this is "easily googlable". I have tried.
My understanding is that the BIOS typically looks for the magic number 0x55aa at the end of a 512 byte sector (so bytes #...
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Assembly language addressing mode instructions
I am studying assembly language. I feel very difficult in understanding few instruction.
ADD R1,R2,[R3]
ADD R1, R2, R3
What is the difference between these two instructions. I think second instruction ...
user145450
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How do data registers work in assembly programming?
I'm learning assembly programming and I can't seem to get my head around the register usage, as I'm using emu8086 which emulates old 8086 processors.
According to 8086 (16-bit architecture) the four ...
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What happens if 2 processor try to access the same memory in one clock cycle?
Assume a parralled adder program:
CPU0:
ADD sum,eax;or
LOCK ADD sum,eax
CPU1:
ADD sum,eax;or
LOCK ADD sum,eax
If these 2 instructions are issued in the same clock ...
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Can you decompile from code that was written in assembly?
I've been reading a little about decompilers, and I think I get the general idea. I understand that I could start with either assembly or machine code, and then I'd have a decompiler which would ...
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How does a CPU do function calls?
Besides basic instructions for a general-purpose computer (binary arithmetic, move instruction, and jump on condition), it seems you can't implement a universal turing machine (is that even the right ...
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What makes 'interrupt vectors' vectors?
I've recently been learning about interrupt vectors, partly from this Wikipedia page.
I've understood that different processors will have different types of interrupts, and the interrupt vector table ...
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How did 8-bit computers (Intel 8088) iterate numbers beyond 256?
I never recall any problem making FOR loops in BASIC to 10000 on old IBM PC computers, but how does it work at the machine level when the number in the data register is (presumably) limited to a ...
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Why are lw and sw byte addressable but jump and beq word addressable?
I am refering to MIPS (32 bits).
Is there any particular reason that when loading or storing a word, we address memory in bytes, but when we jump or branch using beq we address memory in words?
Thanks!...
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Number of stall cycles when there is only EX/MEM pipeline registers or only MEM/WB pipeline register
I am working on a problem which is related to The processor. The problem is the problem 4.12 in the book whose title is "Computer Organization and Design". The problem has the assumption as ...
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Manipulating stack pointer in assembly
I have written an assembly program to store digits in a stack. And to print the digits I have used
loop2:
mov ah,2
int 21h
sub cl,1
jnz loop2
But this would only ...
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How does the assembler translate english assembly to binary machine code instructions?
My assumptions (please correct me if anything in this part is wrong including wrong usages of jargons)
In MIPS instructions, add t1 t2 t3 translates to ...
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Are EAX , EBX registers 64 bit in length in modern processors [closed]
The EAX, EBX and ECX registers on a cpu are they 64 bits for a 64-bit cpu ?
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Why are registers name in assembly cryptic
Why are registers named so short - EAX, EBX,...etc They could have easily made the names more
descriptive rather than encrypted like that.
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Addressing mode in 8086
I'm a beginner learning about Assembly language and I was doing questions where I have to identify different addressing mode in 8086 processor.
One such instruction is:
mov ah,09h
Here the source ...
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purpose of stack segment in assembly language
The code snippet below is the "beginning lines of an assembly language program" used to display a single line string .
...
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What will a given CPU architecture do in the event that we were to invert all of the instruction bits to a given instruction?
Given an arbitrary CPU - Architecture and its instruction set... What would be the outcome of the given inverted instruction within that Architect?
For simplicity, let's use an 8-bit CPU architecture ...
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How does an assembler manage varying offsets when using a literal pool?
I am trying to write a simple multi-pass assembler.
Wikipedia states that:
Multi-pass assemblers create a table with all symbols and their values
in the first passes, then use the table in later ...
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Why can't we compile 8086 Assembily for all OSs from any OS?
If Mac OS, Linux, and Windows (mostly) all use Intel's 8086 64 bit instruction set, why can't we compile 8086 64 assembly from any operating system to any other operating system? (e.g. compile a Mac ...
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Unbanked access, banked access and common memory access
What are they and what are their differences?
Unbanked access
Banked access
Common memory access
[EDIT]
This question is originated from my reading of MPLAB XC8 PIC Assembler User's Guide where the ...
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Detecting Data and Control Hazards for a mips 5 stage pipeline
I'm practicing data and control dependencies, but having trouble detecting them. For this example, I'm assuming this pipeline is fully bypassed (with forwarding). I think the only data dependency is ...
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CPU Registers and Computation
How exactly does the control unit in the CPU retrieves data from registers? Does it retrieve bit by bit?
For example if I'm adding two numbers, A+B, how does the computation takes place in memory ...
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Is it possible to modify the linux assembler in order to modify what fuctions do?
I was wondering if it were possible to modify the linux assembler in order to change the function of "-" to "+" and vice versa.
I was also wondering if this would affect the whole system making it ...
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What is "orthogonality" in the context of Instruction Encoding?
What does it mean by "orthogonality" in the context of Instruction Encoding?
Why CISC Architecture is orthogonal while RISC is not?
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RAM and ROM confusion
we know RAM contains instruction for we ask computer to do operations
we know ROM contains instructions which for computer to work
does this mean RAM contains address of instruction sitting in ROM?
...
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Can a 32-bit processor work with a 64-bit size word?
In a 32-bit byte addressable memory system, each "row" has 4 bytes and each byte has a 32-bit address.
My question is: can I read and/or write word of length 64 bits from/to memory?
In other terms, ...
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Are assembly languages untyped?
I'm writing my Bsc thesis about type systems of various languages and I want to have a short section about assembly languages. Initially I thought I'll bring up assembly as a counter example to ...
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Names of power-of-two bit operations on bitsets that would not assume any number interpretation
Three commonly used functions when it comes to bit manipulation are :
is_pow2: Checking that an integer is a power-of-two (only one bit is set): $00010000 \...
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Do compilers of high programming languages always compile them directly to machine code?
As an amateur Bash/JavaScript scripter who never wrote one sentence in Assembly, I ask:
Do compilers of high programming languages always compile them directly to machine code, or are there cases ...
user109446
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Essential difference between Assembly languages to all other programming languages
I understand that any assembly programming language has so little abstraction, so that one who programms with it (OS creator, hardware driver creator, "hacker" and so on), would have to know the ...
user109446
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Does assembly language get translated to binary code? If so, is assembly language portable across machines?
I've tried to find the answer through Google but I've come across conflicting uses of terminology, so I just wanted to be absolutely clear.
Here is my understanding: High level code written in a ...
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Understanding addition overflows when performing full, signed multiplication of two 64-bit numbers
I am close to solving question 3.59 from Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective 3rd Editionby Randal E. Bryant and David R. O'Hallaron, however I am having difficulties with understanding the ...
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Given a specific computer system, is it possible to estimate the actual precise run time of a piece of Assembly code
this is a piece of Assembly code
...
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How is an Assembly Language Processed by a CPU's Circuitry?
I'd like to have a bit more understanding of how, on a circuitry/hardware level, an assembler program works.
I think I have a very broad-brush understanding of how a CPU would process machine code on ...
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Assembly writer vs compiler in VLIW architecture
I read this sentence in a book:
In VLIW architecture, the compiler/and or assembly writer chooses instructions that can be executed in parallel.
What is the difference between assembly writer and ...
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