Question

I’m writing a DOS program in assembly: I’m trying to draw the Mandelbrot set. I’m now trying to translate this piece of C code in assembly:

double x0 = i * 3.2 / maxX - 2.1; //scaled x coordinate of pixel (-2.1, 1.1)

I’ve translated it as:

finit
fld     scaleX  ;contains 3.5, declared with
fimul   xCoord  ;the i coordinate
fidiv   maxX    ;maximum width (320)
fsub    offsetX ;result is scaleX * xCoord / maxX - offsetX
fstp    x0      ;store the result in x0

Unfortunately the first fld fails. The WD debugger tells me that fld stores nan in the ST(0) FPU register. Why? What am I doing wrong? Here’s the complete program: http://pastebin.com/KDrn5aLD

.387
assume cs:cseg, ds:dseg

uint    TYPEDEF word
integer TYPEDEF word
float   TYPEDEF real4
double  TYPEDEF real8

largh   =       320     ;larghezza dello schermo
alt     =       200     ;altezza dello schermo

dseg    SEGMENT para public 'data'
maxX    integer 0
maxY    integer 0
xCoord  integer 0
yCoord  integer 0       
x0      double  0.0     ;coordinata x del pixel riscalata a (-2.1 - 1.1)
y0      double  0.0     ;coordinata y del pixel riscalata a (-2.1 - 1.1)
scaleX  double  3.2
scaleY  double  2.0     ;scala in X ed in Y delle coordinate
offsetX double  2.1
offsetY double  1.0

x       double  0.0
y       double  0.0     ;valori della serie in un determinato punto (xo, yo)
zeroConst       double  0.0     ;costante double 0.0


dseg    ENDS
cseg    SEGMENT
START:
        mov     maxX, largh
        mov     maxY, alt

        mov     xCoord, 0
forX:   cmp     xCoord, largh
        jae     finish

        ;mov    dl,69
        ;mov    ah,2
        ;int    21h     ;test loop forX

        mov     yCoord, 0
        cmp     yCoord, alt
        jae     nextX
forY:   cmp     yCoord, alt
        jnb     nextX

        ;forY code here
        finit
        fld     scaleX  ;coordinate X
        fimul   xCoord
        fidiv   maxX
        fsub    offsetX ;calcolo scala * coordinata / coordinataMax - offset
        fstp    x0


;       fld     scaleY  ;coordinate Y
;       fimul   yCoord
;       fidiv   maxY
;       fsub    offsetY ;calcolo scala * coordinata / coordinataMax - offset
;       fstp    y0
;       
;       fld     zeroConst
;       fst     x
;       fstp    y



        inc     yCoord
        jmp     forY

nextX:  inc     xCoord
        jmp     forX

finish: mov     dl, 70
        mov     ah, 2
        int     21h

        mov     ah, 4Ch ;DOS terminate opcode
        xor     al, al
        int     21h     ;DOS call       
cseg    ENDS
END     START

Answer 1

One problem I’m seeing is that you are not setting ds and es to point to the dseg segment. It is your responsibility to do that for .EXE programs, not DOS’, assembler’s or linker’s.

Modify the code like so:

cseg    SEGMENT
START:
        mov     ax, dseg
        mov     ds, ax
        mov     es, ax
        mov     maxX, largh
        mov     maxY, alt
        ...

Also you don’t have any stack segment, which is bad as interrupts may overwrite your code or data.

Add one:

sseg segment stack 'stack'
  dw 2048 dup (?)
sseg ends