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  3. Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

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  • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

    Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

    If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

    gunstick@mastodon.opencloud.luG This user is from outside of this forum
    gunstick@mastodon.opencloud.luG This user is from outside of this forum
    gunstick@mastodon.opencloud.lu
    wrote last edited by
    #26

    @ryanc easier question:
    How many registers does the Motorola 68000 have?
    It is also not 16.

    1 Reply Last reply
    0
    • bitchboss@marcella.masto.hostB bitchboss@marcella.masto.host

      @ryanc

      A whole bunch of registers. If you run out of it, You might considder to stop using Macro Assembler and write GWBasic programs...

      RAX, RBX, RCX, RDX, EAX, EBX, ECX, EDX, RDI, RSI, RBP, RSP, EDI, ESI, EBP, ESP, R8-R15, CS, DS, ES, FS, GS, SS, RIP, EIP, RFLAGS, EFLAGS, CR0-CR4, DR0-DR7, MSRs, SIMD, XMM0-XMM15, YMM0-YMM15, ZMM0-ZMM31, MM0--MM7,
      ST0-ST7, MXCSR.

      dascandy@infosec.exchangeD This user is from outside of this forum
      dascandy@infosec.exchangeD This user is from outside of this forum
      dascandy@infosec.exchange
      wrote last edited by
      #27

      @ryanc @bitchboss you forgot ah, al, ch, cl, dh, dl, bh, bl, dil, sil, spl and bpl. And of course r8l, r8w etc.

      bitchboss@marcella.masto.hostB 1 Reply Last reply
      0
      • hp@mastodon.tmm.cxH This user is from outside of this forum
        hp@mastodon.tmm.cxH This user is from outside of this forum
        hp@mastodon.tmm.cx
        wrote last edited by
        #28

        @kaye @ryanc I thought it the most important rule of CPU architectures was to be a PDP-11 and have fun.

        1 Reply Last reply
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        • dascandy@infosec.exchangeD dascandy@infosec.exchange

          @ryanc @bitchboss you forgot ah, al, ch, cl, dh, dl, bh, bl, dil, sil, spl and bpl. And of course r8l, r8w etc.

          bitchboss@marcella.masto.hostB This user is from outside of this forum
          bitchboss@marcella.masto.hostB This user is from outside of this forum
          bitchboss@marcella.masto.host
          wrote last edited by
          #29

          @dascandy @ryanc

          Damn... Are those 8/16 bitters still in use?

          gsuberland@chaos.socialG 1 Reply Last reply
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          • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

            Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

            If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

            keinna@plasmatrap.comK This user is from outside of this forum
            keinna@plasmatrap.comK This user is from outside of this forum
            keinna@plasmatrap.com
            wrote last edited by
            #30

            @ryanc@infosec.exchange more than one

            1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

              Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

              If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

              dalias@hachyderm.ioD This user is from outside of this forum
              dalias@hachyderm.ioD This user is from outside of this forum
              dalias@hachyderm.io
              wrote last edited by
              #31

              @ryanc It depends a lot on what you mean by registers and which execution domain you're talking about.

              ryanc@infosec.exchangeR 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • nspace@infosec.exchangeN nspace@infosec.exchange

                @gsuberland @ryanc we have microcode for amd too 😛 and it works on the newest cpus unlike on intel. there are a lot of internal registes you can access only through microcode

                pixx@merveilles.townP This user is from outside of this forum
                pixx@merveilles.townP This user is from outside of this forum
                pixx@merveilles.town
                wrote last edited by
                #32

                @nspace
                Ooh, links?
                @gsuberland @ryanc

                nspace@infosec.exchangeN 1 Reply Last reply
                0
                • dalias@hachyderm.ioD dalias@hachyderm.io

                  @ryanc It depends a lot on what you mean by registers and which execution domain you're talking about.

                  ryanc@infosec.exchangeR This user is from outside of this forum
                  ryanc@infosec.exchangeR This user is from outside of this forum
                  ryanc@infosec.exchange
                  wrote last edited by
                  #33

                  @dalias yes

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

                    Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

                    If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

                    kentenmakto@mastodon.ieK This user is from outside of this forum
                    kentenmakto@mastodon.ieK This user is from outside of this forum
                    kentenmakto@mastodon.ie
                    wrote last edited by
                    #34

                    @ryanc Related: I grew up thinking the 6502 had three registers.

                    Then I saw someone say X and Y weren't registers at all.

                    Then I saw someone else say the first 256 bytes of RAM *were* registers.

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

                      Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

                      If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

                      stompyrobot@mastodon.gamedev.placeS This user is from outside of this forum
                      stompyrobot@mastodon.gamedev.placeS This user is from outside of this forum
                      stompyrobot@mastodon.gamedev.place
                      wrote last edited by
                      #35

                      @ryanc
                      You *can* talk about "architectural registers" though. But even there, there are a bunch of special purpose registers, so what counts as a "register?"

                      1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

                        Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

                        If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

                        compod@mastodon.socialC This user is from outside of this forum
                        compod@mastodon.socialC This user is from outside of this forum
                        compod@mastodon.social
                        wrote last edited by
                        #36

                        @ryanc having looked into that blog post: complicated. Very complicated. (To quote the Doctor)

                        1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • bitchboss@marcella.masto.hostB bitchboss@marcella.masto.host

                          @dascandy @ryanc

                          Damn... Are those 8/16 bitters still in use?

                          gsuberland@chaos.socialG This user is from outside of this forum
                          gsuberland@chaos.socialG This user is from outside of this forum
                          gsuberland@chaos.social
                          wrote last edited by
                          #37

                          @bitchboss @dascandy @ryanc yup, you even get them for the extended GPRs in x64

                          dascandy@infosec.exchangeD 1 Reply Last reply
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                          • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

                            Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

                            If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

                            israajamal@mastodon.socialI This user is from outside of this forum
                            israajamal@mastodon.socialI This user is from outside of this forum
                            israajamal@mastodon.social
                            wrote last edited by
                            #38

                            @ryanc please help me and support me 🇵🇸 #freepalestine

                            1 Reply Last reply
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                            • timwardcam@c.imT timwardcam@c.im

                              @ryanc Even for a Z80 it's not a trivial answer. (Yes I do know someone who wrote some code that used the R register.)

                              lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizzaL This user is from outside of this forum
                              lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizzaL This user is from outside of this forum
                              lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza
                              wrote last edited by
                              #39

                              @TimWardCam @ryanc, let's see… from what I remember:

                              8-bit registers (treatable as 16-bit pairs): A, F, B, C, D, E, H, L.
                              16-bit registers (treatable as 8-bit halves): IX, IY.
                              8-bit registers: I, R.
                              16-bit registers: AF', BC', DE', HL', SP, PC.

                              18 registers in total. I'm specifically not counting different views as distinct registers: AF is counted as A and F, but IXH and IXL are counted as IX.

                              Yes, some aspects of this are… somewhat arbitrary. I could count BC, DE and HL as three rather than six and it wouldn't be wrong. I could count AF that way too – and it probably does match the other pairs in terms of the actual hardware design (and it could reasonably be called FA as, looking at the opcode patterns, it makes sense for A to be the lower 8 bits).

                              Now. Have I missed anything…?

                              timwardcam@c.imT 1 Reply Last reply
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                              • lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizzaL lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza

                                @TimWardCam @ryanc, let's see… from what I remember:

                                8-bit registers (treatable as 16-bit pairs): A, F, B, C, D, E, H, L.
                                16-bit registers (treatable as 8-bit halves): IX, IY.
                                8-bit registers: I, R.
                                16-bit registers: AF', BC', DE', HL', SP, PC.

                                18 registers in total. I'm specifically not counting different views as distinct registers: AF is counted as A and F, but IXH and IXL are counted as IX.

                                Yes, some aspects of this are… somewhat arbitrary. I could count BC, DE and HL as three rather than six and it wouldn't be wrong. I could count AF that way too – and it probably does match the other pairs in terms of the actual hardware design (and it could reasonably be called FA as, looking at the opcode patterns, it makes sense for A to be the lower 8 bits).

                                Now. Have I missed anything…?

                                timwardcam@c.imT This user is from outside of this forum
                                timwardcam@c.imT This user is from outside of this forum
                                timwardcam@c.im
                                wrote last edited by
                                #40

                                @lp0_on_fire @ryanc Most people never come across R. I knew someone who bult a Rugby clock with no RAM, using just the registers as memory, and to find enough space they needed to use the top few bits of the R register (the bottom few bits cycled too fast to be useful).

                                1 Reply Last reply
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                                • gsuberland@chaos.socialG gsuberland@chaos.social

                                  @bitchboss @dascandy @ryanc yup, you even get them for the extended GPRs in x64

                                  dascandy@infosec.exchangeD This user is from outside of this forum
                                  dascandy@infosec.exchangeD This user is from outside of this forum
                                  dascandy@infosec.exchange
                                  wrote last edited by
                                  #41

                                  @bitchboss @ryanc @gsuberland we even got low ones for di, si, bp and sp... which means you cannot mov ah, bpl...

                                  1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • pixx@merveilles.townP pixx@merveilles.town

                                    @nspace
                                    Ooh, links?
                                    @gsuberland @ryanc

                                    nspace@infosec.exchangeN This user is from outside of this forum
                                    nspace@infosec.exchangeN This user is from outside of this forum
                                    nspace@infosec.exchange
                                    wrote last edited by
                                    #42

                                    @pixx @gsuberland @ryanc
                                    https://youtu.be/sUFDKTaCQEk
                                    https://bughunters.google.com/blog/zen-and-the-art-of-microcode-hacking

                                    1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • ryanc@infosec.exchangeR ryanc@infosec.exchange

                                      Saw a blog post titled "How many registers does an x86-64 CPU have?" and my immediate thought was "it's impossible to know and a sin to ask".

                                      If you think the answer is 16, by the way, no it is not.

                                      G This user is from outside of this forum
                                      G This user is from outside of this forum
                                      gerardthornley@hachyderm.io
                                      wrote last edited by
                                      #43

                                      @ryanc Is that how many can be addressed by each instruction or how many exist in the hardware?

                                      ryanc@infosec.exchangeR 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • G gerardthornley@hachyderm.io

                                        @ryanc Is that how many can be addressed by each instruction or how many exist in the hardware?

                                        ryanc@infosec.exchangeR This user is from outside of this forum
                                        ryanc@infosec.exchangeR This user is from outside of this forum
                                        ryanc@infosec.exchange
                                        wrote last edited by
                                        #44

                                        @GerardThornley how many exist in the hardware

                                        G 1 Reply Last reply
                                        0
                                        • gsuberland@chaos.socialG gsuberland@chaos.social

                                          @ryanc yeah uhhh off the top of my head

                                          rax, rbx, rcx, rdx, r8-r15, rdi, rsi, rsp, rbp, rip and all the components thereof, and rflags

                                          zmm0-zmm??? (can't remember how many we have now) plus the ymm/xmm components.

                                          6 ye olde segment registers.

                                          gdtr, ldtr, idtr, and another I forgot the name of.

                                          maybe 5 control registers? they're numbered to 15 but most are reserved

                                          8 debug registers

                                          x87 FPU and MMX weirdness

                                          hundreds of MSRs, hundreds more if you count CPUID leaves

                                          plus internal regs

                                          endlessmason@hachyderm.ioE This user is from outside of this forum
                                          endlessmason@hachyderm.ioE This user is from outside of this forum
                                          endlessmason@hachyderm.io
                                          wrote last edited by
                                          #45

                                          @gsuberland @ryanc
                                          Also known as a "bakers 16"

                                          1 Reply Last reply
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