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Concept
X86 instruction listings
Summary
The x86 instruction set refers to the set of instructions that x86-compatible microprocessors support. The instructions are usually part of an executable program, often stored as a and executed on the processor.
The x86 instruction set has been extended several times, introducing wider registers and datatypes as well as new functionality.
x86 assembly language
Below is the full 8086/8088 instruction set of Intel (81 instructions total). Most if not all of these instructions are available in 32-bit mode; they just operate on 32-bit registers (eax, ebx, etc.) and values instead of their 16-bit (ax, bx, etc.) counterparts. The updated instruction set is also grouped according to architecture (i386, i486, i686) and more generally is referred to as (32-bit) x86 and (64-bit) x86-64 (also known as AMD64).
The new instructions added in 80286 add support for x86 protected mode. Some but not all of the instructions are available in real mode as well.
The 80386 added support for 32-bit operation to the x86 instruction set. This was done by widening the general-purpose registers to 32 bits and introducing the concepts of OperandSize and AddressSize - most instruction forms that would previously take 16-bit data arguments were given the ability to take 32-bit arguments by setting their OperandSize to 32 bits, and instructions that could take 16-bit address arguments were given the ability to take 32-bit address arguments by setting their AddressSize to 32 bits. (Instruction forms that work on 8-bit data continue to be 8-bit regardless of OperandSize. Using a data size of 16 bits will cause only the bottom 16 bits of the 32-bit general-purpose registers to be modified - the top 16 bits are left unchanged.)
The default OperandSize and AddressSize to use for each instruction is given by the D bit of the segment descriptor of the current code segment - D=0 makes both 16-bit, D=1 makes both 32-bit. Additionally, they can be overridden on a per-instruction basis with two new instruction prefixes that were introduced in the 80386:
66h: OperandSize override.
Official source
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Virtual 8086 mode
In the 80386 microprocessor and later, virtual 8086 mode (also called virtual real mode, V86-mode, or VM86) allows the execution of real mode applications that are incapable of running directly in protected mode while the processor is running a protected mode operating system. It is a hardware virtualization technique that allowed multiple 8086 processors to be emulated by the 386 chip. It emerged from the painful experiences with the 80286 protected mode, which by itself was not suitable to run concurrent real-mode applications well.
Compare-and-swap
In computer science, compare-and-swap (CAS) is an atomic instruction used in multithreading to achieve synchronization. It compares the contents of a memory location with a given value and, only if they are the same, modifies the contents of that memory location to a new given value. This is done as a single atomic operation. The atomicity guarantees that the new value is calculated based on up-to-date information; if the value had been updated by another thread in the meantime, the write would fail.
Protection ring
In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security). Computer operating systems provide different levels of access to resources. A protection ring is one of two or more hierarchical levels or layers of privilege within the architecture of a computer system. This is generally hardware-enforced by some CPU architectures that provide different CPU modes at the hardware or microcode level.