Questions tagged [machine-code]
According to Wikipedia, Machine code or machine language is a set of instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction performs a very specific task, such as a load, a jump, or an ALU operation on a unit of data in a CPU register or memory. Every program directly executed by a CPU is made up of a series of such instructions.
30 questions
3 votes
1 answer
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Are shorter variants of machine instructions worth it?
I'm writing a JIT runtime, and I've started thinking about shorter variants of some instructions. In x64 we can do at least two kinds of jumps: rel8 and rel32. The first one takes say 2 bytes (opcode +...
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1 vote
3 answers
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How do binary numbers interact with the CPU and cause some action to take place? [duplicate]
EDIT: Perhaps what I am misunderstanding is that when it is said that the code we type gets turned into machine code of 0s and 1s. If these 0s and 1s are the abstracted representation of their ...
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3 answers
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How to Write Pure Machine Code for Linux?
I'm writing a compiler, and I want it to compile to a native executable (just Linux, for now). I don't want it to be Assembly, it needs to be PURE machine code. Can anyone point me in the right ...
1 vote
2 answers
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Why do we use the symbols 0 and 1 for two-state logic?
We know a regular computer basically only knows two states and that we name these states 0 and 1 respectively. This seems arbitrary, we could name them "a" and "b", or even 3 and 4. Is there a reason ...
-2 votes
1 answer
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What is 16 bit word's equivalent in decimal?
Question: For a 16 bit word with 6 bits for an opcode How many different instructions could I fit into the instruction set? What is the largest number that I could use as data? Answer: ...
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1 vote
3 answers
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Operation excution in terms of clock cycles
Typically for a single instrcution, 6 machine cycles are needed: FETCH instruction DECODE instruction EVALUATE ADDRESS fetch OPERANDS EXECUTE oepration STORE result My concern is regarding the fifth ...
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15 votes
5 answers
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Compilation to bytecode vs machine code
Does compilation that produces an interim bytecode (like with Java), rather than going "all the way" to machine code, generally involve less complexity (and thus likely take less time)?
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10 votes
1 answer
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Machine code JITs and the Execution Disable bit
How is runtime-generated machine-code (such as the output of a JIT), actually executed by the CPU if the CPU/OS has an Execution Disable bit? As far as I know, many modern processors and Operating ...
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