22AIE102

Elements of Computing Systems-II

Basic Elements of Machine Language

Ms. Sreelakshmi K, Assistant Professor

Center for Computational Engineering and Networking (CEN)
Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore
Acknowledgment: Prof. Noam Nisan and Prof. Shimon Schocken

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Computers are flexible
Same hardware can run many different software programs

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Universality

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Stored program concept

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Stored program concept

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Machine language : operations

What are the instructions or

what each instruction means?

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Machine language : program counter

We are now
at inst. 159.
Next inst. is
160

What instruction has to be

executed next?
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Machine language : Addressing

Operate on
memory
location
340

What the hardware has to

operate on or where the data it
has to operate on is present?
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Compilation

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Mnemonics

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Mnemonics

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 Symbols

The assembler will resolve the symbol index into a specific address

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Machine language : Basic elements

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 Machine language
• Specification of the hardware/software
interface:
– What supported operations?
– What do they operate on?
– How is the program controlled?

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 Machine operations
• Usually correspond to the operations that the
hardware is designed to support:
– Arithmetic operations: add, subtract, …
– Logical operations: and, or, …
– Flow control: “goto instruction n”

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Addressing

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 Memory hierarchy
• Accessing a memory location is expensive:
– Need to supply a long address
– Getting the memory contents into the CPU takes
time
• Solution: memory hierarchy

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 Registers
• The CPU typically contains a few, easily accessed, registers
• Their number and functions are a central part of the machine language

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Addressing modes
Back to the question:
How do we decide which data
to work on?

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 Flow control
• How does the language allow us to decide, and
specify, which instruction to process next?
• Usually the CPU executes machine instructions in
sequence
• Sometimes we need to “jump” unconditionally to
another location,
– e.g. in order to implement a loop:
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Flow control continued..

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 Flow control continued..
• Sometimes we need to jump only if some
condition is met:

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 Hack computer: hardware
A 16-bit machine consisting of:

• Data memory (RAM): a sequence of 16-bit registers:

RAM[0], RAM[1], RAM[2],…

• Instruction memory (ROM): a sequence of 16-bit registers:

ROM[0], ROM[1], ROM[2],…

• Central Processing Unit (CPU): performs 16-bit instructions

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 Hack computer: software

Hack machine language:

• 16-bit A-instructions
• 16-bit C-instructions

Hack program = sequence of instructions

written in the Hack machine language

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 Hack computer: registers

The Hack machine language recognizes three 16-bit registers:

• D: used to store data
• A: used to store data / address the memory
• M: represents the currently addressed memory register: M = RAM[A]
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 The A-instruction
Where value is either:
a non-negative decimal constant or
a symbol referring to such a constant

Semantics:
 Sets the A register to value
 Side effects: RAM[A] becomes the selected RAM register

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 The C-instruction

JGT – Jump greater that 0

Semantics:
• Computes the value of comp
• Stores the result in dest

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 Hack machine language

Two ways to express the same semantics:

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 A-instruction specification

Where value is a 15-bit binary constant

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C-instruction specification

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A typical HACK program

Observations:

• Hack program: a sequence of Hack instructions

• White space is permitted

• Comments are welcome

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Thank You

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