Machine Language
Machine language is built up from discrete statements or instructions. On the processing architecture, a given instruction may specify:
- Particular registers for arithmetic, addressing, or control functions
- Particular memory locations or offsets
- Particular addressing modes used to interpret the operands
More complex operations are built up by combining these simple instructions, which (in a von Neumann architecture) are executed sequentially, or as otherwise directed by control flow instructions.
Read more about this topic: Instruction Set
Famous quotes containing the words machine and/or language:
“The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine is perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the engine restricts one more act of the engineer,—unteaches him.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The language of excitement is at best picturesque merely. You must be calm before you can utter oracles.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)