PIC Assembly: operations on variables larger than 1 byte

[T3STY]

I am having a delay routine that goes like this:

Delay
	ORG 0x0C
	_delay RES 3
	
	MOVLW	0x40
	MOVWF	_delay
	MOVLW	0x42
	MOVWF	_delay+1
	MOVLW	0x0F
	MOVWF	_delay+2
	
	_delay_loop
	DECFSZ _delay, f
	GOTO _delay_loop
RETURN

The whole value within the 3bytes is 1 million which from calculations it should waste 1 second on a 4MHz main clock (1MHz real). Although, when I run this code it will end before 1 million cycles (actually, pretty fast) and I suppose the DECFSZ instruction only works on the first byte of variable _delay.
Thus the question: operations on variables larger than 1 byte will affect only the first byte of the variable? If not, what's wrong in the code I wrote that makes it vanish so fast?

 

[keith1200rs]

The 8 bit processors only operate on bytes. Unless you have a processor that can operate on pairs of bytes (some can do 16 bit arithmetic) you must manipulate larger numbers yourself.

Keith

 

[T3STY]

OK, thank you very much Keith!