Meet the Registers

Registers are the CPU's high-speed storage areas. The x86 architecture includes general-purpose registers like eax, ebx, ecx, and edx.

Types of Registers

• General Purpose: Store data (e.g., eax, ebx)
• Segment: Manage memory segments (e.g., cs, ds)
• Index and Pointer: For arrays and strings (esi, edi, esp, ebp)

Addressing Modes

Assembly lets you access memory directly using various addressing modes:

• Immediate addressing: Value is specified directly (mov eax, 5)
• Register addressing: Uses register content (mov eax, ebx)
• Direct addressing: Uses a memory address (mov eax, [myVar])
• Indirect addressing: Combines registers and offsets (mov eax, [ebx+4])

Why Does This Matter?

Understanding registers and addressing helps you write fast, efficient code and debug tricky issues.

A Real-World Example

Efficient memory access is crucial in systems programming—think of an operating system managing processes or a video game optimizing graphics.