title: 8086 assembly, about the PTR operator
body: <p>this might be simple and silly but i'll ask it anyway since i don't seem to be able to figure it out.</p>
  
  <p>a simple code snippet:</p>
  
  <pre><code> assume cs:code, ds:data
   data segment
      b dd 256
   data ends
  
   code segment
   start:
          mov ax,data
          mov ds,ax
          mov ax,word ptr b     -&gt; the result of this operation will be ax:= 256 (100h)
  
          mov bx,word ptr b+1   -&gt; while this is going to be bx:= 1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I suppose it has something to do with the address and it being moved by a byte or something but i'm not exactly sure, and i really need to understand.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance !</p>