How to set 1 second time delay at assembly language 8086

You can use interrupt 1Ah / function 00h (GET SYSTEM TIME) to get the number of clock ticks (18.2/s) since midnight in CX:DX.

So to wait approximately 1 second using this method you'd execute this interrupt function once, save CX:DX in a variable, then execute the same interrupt in a loop until the absolute value of CX:DX - firstCX:DX is greater than 18.

Set 1 million microseconds interval (1 second) By using below instruction .

MOV     CX, 0FH
MOV     DX, 4240H
MOV     AH, 86H
INT     15H

You can set multiple second delay by using 86H and INT 15H

check these links for more details

Waits a specified number of microseconds before returning control to the caller

INT 15H 86H: Wait

What i finally ended up using was the nop loop

; start delay

mov bp, 43690
mov si, 43690
delay2:
dec bp
nop
jnz delay2
dec si
cmp si,0    
jnz delay2
; end delay

I used two registers which I set them both to any high value and its gonna keep on looping until both values go to zero

What I used here was AAAA for both SI and BP, i ended up with roughly 1 second for each delay loop.

Thanks for the help guys, and yes, we still use MS DOS for this assembly language course :(