Simple Computer Simulator Instruction-Set
--D. Thiebaut (talk) 16:57, 26 August 2014 (EDT)
Contents
This page documents all the instructions that are supported by the Simple Computer Simulator shown below. You can click on the image to go to the Javascript simulator. This simulator is used in the CSC103 How Computers Work course at Smith College.
Simple Computer Simulator
Instructions Using the Accumulator and a Number
These instructions operate with a single number (we refer to them as constants) that is either loaded into, added, or subtracted from the accumulator register.
Instruction | Code (decimal) |
Code ( binary) |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
ADD number |
24 |
00011000 |
|
COMP number |
84 |
01010100 |
|
DIV number |
44 |
00101100 |
|
LOAD number |
4 |
00000100 |
|
MUL number |
40 |
00101000 |
|
SUB number |
32 |
00100000 |
|
Instructions Using Memory
These instructions are followed by a number in brackets. This number refers to the location, or address in memory where the actual operand is located. So, if the number following the instruction is [100], it means that the instruction will use whatever number is stored at 100. A simple analogy might help here. Think of the difference between these two statements:
- "Please read the book The Little Prince."
and the statement
- "Please read the book from the library, with Call Number PQ2637.A274 P4613 2000".
Both statements refer to reading the same book. The first one refers to the book directly. The instructions in the section above operate similarly with their operands. The second statement refers to the book indirectly, by giving you its address in the library. The instructions in this section perform the same way. By putting brackets around the numbers that follow the instructions, we indicate that the numbers used are not the actual numbers we want to combine with the accumulator, but the address of the cells where we will find the numbers of interest.
This may still be a bit obscure, but read on the description for each instruction and this will hopefully become a bit clearer.
Instruction | Code (decimal) |
Code ( binary) |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
ADD [address] |
26 |
00011010 |
|
COMP [address] |
86 |
01010110 |
|
DIV [address] |
46 |
00101110 |
|
LOAD [address] |
6 |
00000110 |
|
MUL [address] |
42 |
00101010 |
|
STORE [address] |
18 |
00010010 |
|
SUB [address] |
34 |
00100010 |
|
Instructions Using the Index and a Number
The Index is a register in the processor that contains numbers, just as the Accumulator does. However, the numbers in the index represent addresses of cells containing numbers. The Index is useful is situations where we have several numbers in consecutive memory locations, and we want to perform the same operation on each one, say add 1 to each of the numbers. In this case we store in the Index the address of the first number, say, 100, and operate on that number through the Index. We'll need new instructions for that, but for right now we just want to see how we can load numbers in the index.
Instruction | Code (decimal) |
Code ( binary) |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
ADDX |
28 |
00011100 |
|
LOADX number |
8 |
00001000 |
|
STOREXm |
22 |
00010110 |
|
SUBX |
36 |
00100100 |
|
Other
|-
|
ADDXm
|
30
|
00011110
|
|- | ADDXx | 29 | 00011101 |
|- | ADDx | 25 | 00011001 |
|- | COMPX | 92 | 01011100 |
|- | COMPXm | 94 | 01011110 |
|- | COMPXx | 93 | 01011101 |
|- | COMPx | 85 | 01010101 |
|-
|
DIVx
|
45
|
00101101
|
|- | HALT | 127 | 01111111 |
|- | JEQ | 68 | 01000100 |
|- | JLT | 72 | 01001000 |
|- | JUMP | 64 | 01000000 |
|-
|
LOADXm
|
10
|
00001010
|
|- | LOADXx | 9 | 00001001 |
|- | LOADx | 5 | 00000101 |
|-
|
MULx
|
41
|
00101001
|
|- | NOP | 0 | 00000000 |
|- | STOREXx | 21 | 00010101 |
|- | STOREx | 17 | 00010001 |
|-
|
SUBXm
|
38
|
00100110
|
|- | SUBXx | 37 | 00100101 |
|- | SUBx | 33 | 00100001 |
|- | TAX | 79 | 01001111 |
|- | TXA | 83 | 01010011 |
|- |}