AH = 08h: Read Character and Attribute at Cursor Position

If the video mode is Text, this function returns the character and attribute bytes at the current cursor location. If the display is in graphics mode, it attempts a match on the bit pattern against the resident 8x8 byte wide font. If a match is found, it will return the character (no attribute), otherwise it returns AL=0. In text modes that support multiple pages, characters may be fetched from pages not currently in the display.