Chapter 4 Systems Architecture

Many of the architectural features of the 80386 are used only by systems programmers. This chapter presents an overview of these aspects of the architecture.

The systems-level features of the 80386 architecture include:

Memory Management
Protection
Multitasking
Input/Output
Exceptions and Interrupts
Initialization
Coprocessing and Multiprocessing
Debugging

These features are implemented by registers and instructions, all of which are introduced in the following sections. The purpose of this chapter is not to explain each feature in detail, but rather to place the remaining chapters of Part II in perspective. Each mention in this chapter of a register or instruction is either accompanied by an explanation or a reference to a following chapter where detailed information can be obtained.

4.1 Systems Registers
4.2 Systems Instructions

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