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| | x86 Assembly Language FAQ - General Part II |
 | | In real mode, the value of the segment register is shifted left four bits to find the base address of the segment, and the size of the segment is always 64k. |
 | | In protected mode, the value in the segment register is used as an index into a descriptor table located in memory, and the base address and size (which may be as small as 4 KB, or as large as 4 GB) from the descriptor table are loaded into the descriptor cache. |
 | | After switching from protected mode to real mode, however, when you load the segment registers with their new values, the segment's base address is recalculated according to real mode rules, but the size limit is not changed. |
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