prompt the user to change background and foreground

[sickly_man]

hello everybody. the project im working on asks me to propmt the user once to change the background color and once to change the foreground (text) color. right now my program prompts the user...but not with the message i have in the data segment...it spits out some unattractive code. could some of you kind assembly programmers take a look at my code? IM NOT ASKING THAT YOU DO MY ASSIGNMENT FOR ME! ive done work, i am just stuck on the keyboard input part....im doing something wrong with displaying my prompt and getting keyboard input. thanks in advance. my code is below.

and btw im using a TASM compiler and TLINK linker and running this in the Windows command prompt.

TITLE	Homework 7 attempt # 2
;............................................................
STACKSG	SEGMENT PARA STACK 'Stack'
DB 32 dup(0)			;32 words, might want to set larger
STACKSG	ENDS
;.................................................................
DATASG SEGMENT PARA 'Data' 	;data segment
	paralst	LABEL	BYTE	
	maxlen	db	10
	actlen	db	?
	dbdata	db	10	DUP('$')
	prompt1	DB	'Enter a foreground color:$', '$'
	prompt2	DB	'Enter a background color:$', '$'

DATASG ENDS
;.............................................................
CODESG SEGMENT PARA 'Code'
MAIN	 PROC FAR		;main procedure
	ASSUME SS:STACKSG, DS:DATASG, CS:CODESG
	MOV AX,DATASG		;Set address of data
	MOV DS,AX		;Segment in DS


		; CODE GOES HERE!!!!

		; CHANGE OUTER BACKGROUND COLOR
		mov	ah, 06H
		mov 	al, 0
		mov	bh, 10H
		mov	cx, 0000H
		mov	dx, 184FH
		int	10H

		; CHANGE INNER BACKGROUND COLOR
		mov	ah, 06H
		mov 	al, 0
		mov	bh, 70H
		mov	cx, 060FH
		mov	dx, 1240H
		int	10H

		; SET CURSOR POSITOIN
		mov ah, 02H
		mov bh, 00
		mov dh, 09
		mov dl, 30
		int 10h

		; DISPLAY PROMPT TO USER
		mov ah, 09H
		lea bx, prompt1
		int 21H

		; GET KEYBOARD INPUT
		mov	ah, 0ah
		lea	dx, paralst
		int	21h

		;check if no characters entered
		lea	dx, actlen
		cmp	actlen, 0
		je	again

		; CHECK FOR A CHAR CODE
		lea	dx, dbdata

		; CHECK FOR Red
		cmp	dx, 72h		;lower case r
		je	code_R

		;check for Green
		cmp	dx, 67h		;lower case g
		je	code_G

		jmp again	; dont change color

		;to clear screen and set background to red
	code_R:	mov	ah, 06h
		mov 	al, 0
		mov	bh, 40h
		mov	cx, 060Fh
		mov	dx, 1240h
		int	10h

		;to clear screen and set background to green
	code_G:	mov	ah, 06h
		mov 	al, 0
		mov	bh, 20h
		mov	cx, 060Fh
		mov	dx, 1240h
		int	10h

	again:	jmp again

	MOV AX,4C00H		;End processing
	INT 21H
MAIN	ENDP			;End procedure
CODESG	ENDS			;End segment
	END MAIN		;End program