The Intel Corporation provides many useful documents on the
Pentium 4 Processor Technical Documentation page.
Especially useful for helping you to understand the machine dependent code of MINIX 3 on an IBM-PC compatible machine will be the Manuals section. As of October 2016 the following manuals are available as PDF files (read with Adobe Acrobat or Ghostview):
These are all downloadable as PDF files in various combinations (read with Adobe Acrobat or Ghostview). A CD-ROM containing the complete set of manuals is no longer available, but official print copies can be ordered from Lulu.
All AMD processors for IBM-PC have the same IA-32 architecture as Intel processors. The differences are in multimedia technology, where AMD processors have 3DNOW! and other things… And the next AMD processor (x86-64) will be different, but still compatible with IA-32. So, the Intel docs will also help you understand and program for AMD processors. But, AMD provides manuals too – they are available at the
page. These AMD manuals were available as of October 2016:
Note that the syntax of the assembly language used in MINIX 3 is different from Intel's. The MINIX 3 syntax is consistent with assembly languages used by other UNIX-derived systems. Other links on the page point to articles describing assembly language syntax.