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ABOUT THIS MANUAL
Chapter 2 — Introduction to the IA-32 Architecture. Introduces the IA-32 architecture and
the families of Intel processors that are based on this architecture. It also gives an overview of
the common features found in these processors and brief history of the IA-32 architecture.
Chapter 3 — Basic Execution Environment. Introduces the models of memory organization
and describes the register set used by applications.
Chapter 4 — Data Types. Describes the data types and addressing modes recognized by the
processor; provides an overview of real numbers and floating-point formats and of floating-
point exceptions.
Chapter 5 — Instruction Set Summary. Lists the all the IA-32 architecture instructions,
divided into technology groups (general-purpose, x87 FPU, MMX™ technology, Streaming
SIMD Extensions (SSE), Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2), and system instructions).
Within these groups, the instructions are presented in functionally related groups.
Chapter 6 — Procedure Calls, Interrupts, and Exceptions. Describes the procedure stack
and the mechanisms provided for making procedure calls and for servicing interrupts and
exceptions.
Chapter 7 — Programming With the General-Purpose Instructions. Describes the basic
load and store, program control, arithmetic, and string instructions that operate on basic data
types and on the general-purpose and segment registers; describes the system instructions that
are executed in protected mode.
Chapter 8 — Programming With the x87 Floating Point Unit. Describes the x87 floating-
point unit (FPU), including the floating-point registers and data types; gives an overview of the
floating-point instruction set; and describes the processor's floating-point exception conditions.
Chapter 9 — Programming with Intel MMX Technology. Describes the Intel MMX tech-
nology, including MMX registers and data types, and gives an overview of the MMX instruction
set.
Chapter 10 — Programming with Streaming SIMD Extensions (SSE). Describes the SSE
extensions, including the XMM registers, the MXCSR register, and the packed single-precision
floating-point data types; gives an overview of the SSE instruction set; and gives guidelines for
writing code that accesses the SSE extensions.
Chapter 11 — Programming with Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2). Describes the
SSE2 extensions, including XMM registers and the packed double-precision floating-point data
types; gives an overview of the SSE2 instruction set; and gives guidelines for writing code that
accesses the SSE2 extensions. This chapter also describes the SIMD floating-point exceptions
that can be generated with SSE and SSE2 instructions, and it gives general guidelines for incor-
porating support for the SSE and SSE2 extensions into operating system and applications code.
Chapter 12 — Input/Output. Describes the processor’s I/O mechanism, including I/O port
addressing, the I/O instructions, and the I/O protection mechanism.
Chapter 13 — Processor Identification and Feature Determination. Describes how to deter-
mine the CPU type and the features that are available in the processor.
Appendix A — EFLAGS Cross-Reference. Summarizes how the IA-32 instructions affect the
flags in the EFLAGS register.