Question

I’ve compiled this with nasm, and i’m running it through bochs. In my mind the 2 colour variable should make it print the 2 lines in blue. It actually prints one brown and one white. I cannot figure it out though. Any help immensely appreciated

    [BITS 16]   
    [ORG 0x7C00]
    main:

    ;set video mode
    mov ah,0x00     ;function ref
    mov al,0x10     ;param - video mode
    int 0x10

    mov si, TestString
    mov bl,Color        ; Normal text attribute
    call PutStr

    mov si, TestString
    mov bl,Color2       ; Normal text attribute
    call PutStr

    jmp $

    ;-------------------------------- End of running code

    PutStr:
    ; Set up the registers for the interrupt call
    mov ah,0x0E         ; The function to display a chacter (teletype)
    mov bh,0x00         ; Page number

    .nextchar:
    lodsb               ; load string byte from SI into AL and increments SI
    or al,al            ; check for end of string
    jz .endofstring     ; jump to end if null

    int 0x10            ; Run the BIOS video interrupt 
    jmp .nextchar       ; Loop back round to the top

    .endofstring:
    ret


    Color db 0001b
    Color2 db 0001b
    TestString db 'Hello world',13,10,0,0

    times 510-($-$$) db 0       ; Fill the rest of the sector with zero's
    dw 0xAA55           ; Add the boot loader signature to the end

Answer 1

The problem is actually with the usage of the Color and Color2 identifier. You need to “dereference” them to get the actual value of what they “point” to:

mov bl, [Color]

Check out Effective Addresses in the NASM manual for more information.