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From: dix@clinet.fi (Risto Kaivola)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.intel
Subject: Technical Books on Intel's 80x86 Line Wanted (SUMMARY)
Summary: Yes, it is a summary
Keywords: instruction encodings data format CPU books programmer
Message-ID: <1991Feb9.182706.954@clinet.fi>
Date: 9 Feb 91 18:27:06 GMT
Organization: City Lines Oy, Helsinki, Finland
Lines: 48

[First of all, apologies for breaking the reply chain. In my site, news
expire within a couple of days, and now that it is over a week since the
last reply appeared in this group, I can't reply to it.]

In my original posting, I wanted information on the 'internal
representation' of the instruction set. This was apparently a rather vague
expression, and it probably confused some. The appropriate term to use
would be 'instruction encoding'.
John R. Levine was very helpful, even providing me with an Intel's books
list (the six-digit number before the title is a book classification
number used by Intel - using it makes ordering faster):

230843  Microprocessors Handbook
240486  i486 Programmer's Reference
230985  386DX Programmer's Reference
210498  80286 Programmer's Reference

According to John Levine, each of these cost about USD 25.
He also told me that Intel has a "literature guide" (210620), in which
most of the available manuals are listed. In addition, each chip has a
data sheet, usually available at no cost, that lists the electrical
characteristics of the ship, and for CPU chips, often lists the data
formats and instruction encodings. According to the Finnish representative
of Intel (Fintronic, +358 0 6926022), the Microprocessors Handbook
includes data sheets for Intel CPUs. I've had no opportunity to check this,
though - they sent the data sheets instead of the single book.
  Marc Brandis told me that the instruction encoding of the 80386, as well
as its predecessors, can also be found in the Sybex book "Programming the
80386" by Crawford.
  For those who wondered why I don't just go and mess with a debugger:
I've no doubt that this would work, but the question for me is time. I
would probably be still thinking of the possible methods used for encoding,
if I had followed your advice :-).
  During the search for information, I also managed to get my hands on the A68
assembler (V314). In the documentation the author, a former Intel employee,
discusses the instruction encodings. The assembler is shareware, and I
deleted it, for I won't be needing this kind of package now. Interested
persons might try using ftp to transfer it from SIMTEL20 (of course, I just
lost the exact location. If memory serves me, it was wsmr-simtel20.army.mil).
 
Thanks for all who responded!

Risto
--
Risto Kaivola (dix@clinet.fi) or (Risto.Kaivola@f123.n220.z2.FIDONET.ORG)
-- 
Risto Kaivola    Internet: dix@clinet.fi, UUCP: ...mcsun!santra!clinet!dix
VOICE: + 358 367 249