Chapter 1: The Intel 8080 Instruction Set¶
An instruction in machine code performs a single operation from the computer’s instruction set architecture. Each instruction is built into the hardware of the computer using digital circuits.
We could spend a lot of time studying how these digital circuits work. We won’t. Deciding whether to do that or not presents a fork in the road in the journey to demystify computers between computer engineering and computer science. Our focus here will be on computer science. So to just give you a taste of how digital circuits work, we will take a look at just two of them, an adder circuit and an SRAM flip-flop
For any of you who want to dive deeper into the world of diginal circuits, using them to build a computer, we recommend taking a look at From Nand to Tetris.
Glossary¶
- instruction¶
The smallest single operation that the computer can be directed to execute.