What is the difference between 32-bit General-Purpose registers and Segment regi

Question

What is the difference between 32-bit General-Purpose registers and Segment registers? Name all eight 32-bit General Purpose registers and all six Segment registers.

Also:

1. Name at least four CPU flags:

2. Which Flag is set when the result of a signed arithmetic operation is either too large or too small to fit into the destination?

3. In 32-bit mode, aside from the stack pointer (ESP), what other register points to variables on the stack?

4. T/F : The x86-64 processers have 4 more general –purpose registers than the x86 processors.

Explanation / Answer

What is the difference between 32-bit General-Purpose registers and Segment registers? Name all eight 32-bit General Purpose registers and all six Segment registers.

General purpose register are used to hold the temporary data and intermediate results whereas segment registers are used for memory access. They store addresses of instruction and data in memory. These values are used by processor to access memory locations.

Eight 32-bit general purpose registers are:

EAX - accumulator for operands and results

EBX - pointer to data in Data segment

ECX - counter for the loop and other string operations

EDX - Input/Output pointer

ESI - Pointer to data, source string

EDI - Pointer to data, destination string

EBP - base pointer

ESP - stack pointer

Six Segment Registers are:

CS

SS

DS

ES

FS

GS

CS and SS are used for code and Stack whereas rest 4 are used for Data.

Also:

1. Name at least four CPU flags:

zero flag - when the result is zero

sign flag - when the result is negative

carry flag - when the result of unsigned arithmetic is out of range

overflow flag - when the result of signed arithmetic is out of range

2. Which Flag is set when the result of a signed arithmetic operation is either too large or too small to fit into the destination?

Overflow Flag

3. In 32-bit mode, aside from the stack pointer (ESP), what other register points to variables on the stack?

EBP, i.e., Base Pointer also known as Frame Pointer

4. T/F : The x86-64 processers have 4 more general –purpose registers than the x86 processors.

False. Additional 8 more registers are there in x86-64 processers.

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