~maddie/custom-processor-specification

45e266958cc47af7a590d63a383c14aad28c33f2 — Madeline Cronin 3 months ago 6036dd9
Second pass for overview and instruction categories.
Made the overview easier to read by grouping details more sensibly, and made the descriptions
in the instruction categories more consistent.
1 files changed, 119 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)

M mta_v1.0.txt
M mta_v1.0.txt => mta_v1.0.txt +119 -22
@@ 3,31 3,128 @@ Maddie's test ISA Version 1.0

Table of contents:
1 - Overview
2 - Instruction composition
2 - Instruction conditions
3 - Instruction categories
4 - Instruction descriptions


- Overview:
The numbers: 16 bit words, 2-word fixed instruction length, 32 16-bit registers,
65535 main memory and VRAM addresses each, 2^32 max disc addresses.

Overview: -- TODO: clean up for readability
This is a simplistic 16 bit RISC ISA, which describes a largely stateless CPU, the only
statefulness that is described is the ability to toggle interrupts.
There are no described SIMD or floating point capabilities, this will likely change
in future versions of this ISA.
The versioning is delineated such that minor versions are backwards compatible, while major versions are not.
The serial port is primarily designed for interfacing with STDIN/STDOUT in simulated versions,
although it may be useful in hardware also.
Interrupts can either be triggered by software, for the purposes of providing a standard location in memory,
or triggered by hardware, for now this is just for keyboard interrupts.
One major feature is that all instructions have the option to have a condition attached, located in the first
four bits of each instruction, functioning as two toggles and two requirements, in order to facilitate
negative conditons.
This ISA describes a CPU with variable length instructions, a combined program and general purpose RAM,
and a 16 bit word length, with registers to match.
Memory is word addressable, and up to 65535 main memory addresses are available, with up to 2^32 words of
disk space accessible through use of the disk index register.
There are 32 registers, the first of which is reserved for interrupts, software or otherwise.
Upon boot, the first 512 words of disk are copied to main memory.

Instruction categories:
Features: All instructions can have conditional execution attached.
Hardware and software interrupts are toggleable. Serial port I/O intended for
interfacing with STDIN/STDOUT on simulated versions.

Registers: 32 registers, with registers #28-31 (zero indexed) reserved for the
following special purposes, in order: disk index, stack pointer, program
counter, and interrupt register. The program counter is freely readable, but
only modifiable through instructions in the control flow category. There is
also a 2 bit flags register for storing the condition flags.

Behaviours: Upon power up, the first 512 words of disk are copied to main
memory. The only statefulness not directly controlled by programs is the
interrupt toggle.

Versioning: The versioning of this ISA is such that minor versions are
backwards compatible, while major versions have one or more breaking changes
that may mean old code no longer works.

Notes for reading: In the description of a bit or collection of bits for an
instruction, anything following a tag such as (A=1) means that any behaviours
described between that tag and the next tag, or end of line, are only followed
when the condition in the tag is met. If no conditions are met, no additional
behaviour is to occur.


- Instruction Conditions:
ABab----|--------|--------|--------
AB = Activation Flags
ab = Condition Flags
There is a 2 bit register in the CPU which stores the state of A and B, and is
updated by certain instructions.
When an activation flag is set, the corresponding condition bit must match its
condition flag in order for the instruction to be executed.

- Instruction Categories:
----XXXX|--------|--------|---------
XXXX=
0000: Halt
0001: Arithmetic
0010: Logical
0011: Condition Check
0100: Control Flow
0101: Memory Access
0110: Immediate Value
1111: No-op

Halt:
----0000|--------|--------|---------
Halts the processor.

Arithmetic:
----0001|SCFIXXXX|--------|---------
S: Input is (S=0) unsigned, (S=1) signed using 2's complement
C: (C=1) Update the specified condition flag upon overflow
F: Specifies (F=0) flag A or (F=1) flag B
I: (I=1) Invert the result

XXXX=
0000: Addition
0001: Subtraction
0010: Multiplication
0011: Integer Division

Logical:
----0010|ZFRIXXXX|--------|--------
Z: (Z=1) Update the specified condition flag if the result is zero
F: Specifies (F=0) flag A or (F=1) flag B
R: (I=1) Invert the flag write
I: (I=1) Invert the result, acts before the zero check

XXXX=
0000: AND
0001: OR
0010: XOR

Condition check:
----0011|FIXX----|--------|--------
F: (I=1) Invert the flag write
I: (I=0) Normal write, (I=1) inverted write

XX=
00: Equal
01: Less than
10: Greater than

Control flow:
----0100|JSPITT--|--------|--------
J: (J=0) Jump to the described address, (J=1) Add the described value to the
program counter
S: (S=1) Push the current address to the stack
P: (P=1) Pop from the stack and use the stack value instead of a register
value
I: (I=1) If interrupts are enabled, jump to 0. This overrides J and P,
preventing the pop from occuring. Note that if interrupts are disabled then J
and P will work normally.

TT=
0x: No additional effect
10: Toggle interrupts off
11: Toggle interrupts on, both of these operations act before the condition
check for I=1

Memory access:
----0101|AXXX----|--------|--------
A: (A=0) Read/pop, (A=1) Write/push

XXX=
000: Pop/push to stack
001: Read/write RAM
010: R/W disk
011: R/W VRAM
100: R/W to serial port

Immediate value:
----0110|RRRRR---|xxxxxxxx|xxxxxxxx
Writes the value denoted by x's to the register of index RRRRR