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Consequently, all early computers had a serial ALU that operated on one data bit at a time although they often presented a wider word size to programmers. The first computer to have multiple parallel discrete single-bit ALU circuits was the 1951 Whirlwind I, which employed sixteen such "math units" to enable it to operate on 16-bit words.
It provides many of the functions found in simple, commercially available CPUs. The most complex element of the CPU is the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) which provides the computational functionality of the computer. The ALU is a combinational logic device having two 16-bit input operands and a single 16-bit output.
In computer processors, the carry flag (usually indicated as the C flag) is a single bit in a system status register/flag register used to indicate when an arithmetic carry or borrow has been generated out of the most significant arithmetic logic unit (ALU) bit position.
In theoretical computer science, a circuit is a model of computation in which input values proceed through a sequence of gates, each of which computes a function. Circuits of this kind provide a generalization of Boolean circuits and a mathematical model for digital logic circuits.
In computing, an opcode (abbreviated from operation code) [1] [2] is an enumerated value that specifies the operation to be performed. Opcodes are employed in hardware devices such as arithmetic logic units (ALUs), central processing units (CPUs), and software instruction sets.
Computer hardware and software standards are technical standards instituted for compatibility and interoperability between software, systems, platforms and devices. Hardware [ edit ]
Support for such operations was an upgrade option rather than being a standard feature. Since the VAX's registers were 32 bits wide, a 128-bit operation used four consecutive registers or four longwords in memory. The ICL 2900 Series provided a 128-bit accumulator, and its instruction set included 128-bit floating-point and packed decimal ...
A few computers were built using writable microcode. In this design, rather than storing the microcode in ROM or hard-wired logic, the microcode is stored in a RAM called a writable control store or WCS. Such a computer is sometimes called a writable instruction set computer (WISC). [45]