Real mode assembly I
Difficulty level |
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Beginner |
In this tutorial we will assemble a small 16-bit assembly language kernel with NASM and boot it.
Overview
You're probably going to sigh and dismiss yet another tutorial on writing operating systems in x86 assembly language, especially since this one uses real mode. But there's a catch to this one; it actually does more than printing "Hello World" to the screen and halting.
For this, you'll need:
- the latest version of NASM (2.05.01 as of November 28th, 2008)
- PARTCOPY on Windows or dd on Linux
- an emulator like QEMU, Bochs, or Microsoft Virtual PC
So what's it going to look like?
Well, there will be a single source file, the kernel. What about a bootloader? This is such a small kernel, we're not going to use a filesystem at all, we're just going to put the kernel into the first few sectors of the disk image!
The system will have a string printing call (of course), keyboard input, and a strcmp call similar to that of C, all packaged into less than a sector.
But I want a GUI and sound effects and all the Windows games to work on my OS...
So where's the code?
Here you go, go wild.
org 0x7C00 ; add 0x7C00 to label addresses
bits 16 ; tell the assembler we want 16 bit code
mov ax, 0 ; set up segments
mov ds, ax
mov es, ax
mov ss, ax ; setup stack
mov sp, 0x7C00 ; stack grows downwards from 0x7C00
mov si, welcome
call print_string
mainloop:
mov si, prompt
call print_string
mov di, buffer
call get_string
mov si, buffer
cmp byte [si], 0 ; blank line?
je mainloop ; yes, ignore it
mov si, buffer
mov di, cmd_hi ; "hi" command
call strcmp
jc .helloworld
mov si, buffer
mov di, cmd_help ; "help" command
call strcmp
jc .help
mov si,badcommand
call print_string
jmp mainloop
.helloworld:
mov si, msg_helloworld
call print_string
jmp mainloop
.help:
mov si, msg_help
call print_string
jmp mainloop
welcome db 'Welcome to My OS!', 0x0D, 0x0A, 0
msg_helloworld db 'Hello OSDev World!', 0x0D, 0x0A, 0
badcommand db 'Bad command entered.', 0x0D, 0x0A, 0
prompt db '>', 0
cmd_hi db 'hi', 0
cmd_help db 'help', 0
msg_help db 'My OS: Commands: hi, help', 0x0D, 0x0A, 0
buffer times 64 db 0
; ================
; calls start here
; ================
print_string:
lodsb ; grab a byte from SI
or al, al ; logical or AL by itself
jz .done ; if the result is zero, get out
mov ah, 0x0E
int 0x10 ; otherwise, print out the character!
jmp print_string
.done:
ret
get_string:
xor cl, cl
.loop:
mov ah, 0
int 0x16 ; wait for keypress
cmp al, 0x08 ; backspace pressed?
je .backspace ; yes, handle it
cmp al, 0x0D ; enter pressed?
je .done ; yes, we're done
cmp cl, 0x3F ; 63 chars inputted?
je .loop ; yes, only let in backspace and enter
mov ah, 0x0E
int 0x10 ; print out character
stosb ; put character in buffer
inc cl
jmp .loop
.backspace:
cmp cl, 0 ; beginning of string?
je .loop ; yes, ignore the key
dec di
mov byte [di], 0 ; delete character
dec cl ; decrement counter as well
mov ah, 0x0E
mov al, 0x08
int 10h ; backspace on the screen
mov al, ' '
int 10h ; blank character out
mov al, 0x08
int 10h ; backspace again
jmp .loop ; go to the main loop
.done:
mov al, 0 ; null terminator
stosb
mov ah, 0x0E
mov al, 0x0D
int 0x10
mov al, 0x0A
int 0x10 ; newline
ret
strcmp:
.loop:
mov al, [si] ; grab a byte from SI
mov bl, [di] ; grab a byte from DI
cmp al, bl ; are they equal?
jne .notequal ; nope, we're done.
cmp al, 0 ; are both bytes (they were equal before) null?
je .done ; yes, we're done.
inc di ; increment DI
inc si ; increment SI
jmp .loop ; loop!
.notequal:
clc ; not equal, clear the carry flag
ret
.done:
stc ; equal, set the carry flag
ret
times 510-($-$$) db 0
dw 0AA55h ; some BIOSes require this signature
To assemble on Windows:
nasm kernel.asm -f bin -o kernel.bin
partcopy kernel.bin 0 200 -f0
Or on Linux:
nasm kernel.asm -f bin -o kernel.bin
dd if=kernel.bin of=/dev/sda
Those commands assemble your kernel binary and write them to the first disk (sda might be your system disk, so use sdb, sdc etc. according to your configuration. USB-sticks also appear as one of the "sd" devices). Go ahead and test out your operating system now!
What next?
Why, that's up to you of course! You could add more commands, expand your OS to another sector and learn to use the BIOS sector load functions, add a stack and improve the calls, etc.
Have fun with your OS, however you decide to write it!
EDIT on December 12 2008: I've written a second part to this tutorial at Real mode assembly II. This and future parts will have less code to copy and paste and more theory!
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