Getting Started with x86¶

• Table of contents
• Getting Started with x86
  • Prerequisite
  • Demo Specifications
  • Demo Templates

Prerequisite¶

MicroTESK should be installed.

Demo Specifications¶

Specifications of the x86 (8086) instruction set architecture (ISA) can be found in $MICROTESK_HOME/arch/demo/x86/model/x86.nml.

Instruction are described in nML by means of the following constructs (mov r16/r16 is taken as an example):

1. the signature
   

   op mov_r1616 (dst: GPR16, src: GPR16)

2. the assembly format
   

   syntax = format("mov %s, %s", dst.syntax, src.syntax)

3. the binary encoding
   

   image = format("1000101111%s%s", dst.image, src.image)

4. the semantics
   

     action = {
       dst = src;
       ...
     }
   

To compile the ISA model, run the following command:

$MICROTESK_HOME/bin/compile.sh x86.nml

Demo Templates¶

Test templates for the x86 ISA can be found in $MICROTESK_HOME/arch/demo/x86/templates.

The directory contains a number of demo templates including the following ones:

Test templates are written in Ruby extended with specific constructs.

To generate test program(s) from a test template (say, block.rb), run the following command:

sh $MICROTESK_HOME/bin/generate.sh x86 block.rb --code-file-prefix block --code-file-extension asm -v

When generation is finished, the resulting assembly code can be found in $MICROTESK_HOME.