Impact of Machine Architecture on Programming Languages | PPL | Impact of Computer Architectures

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Impact of Machine Architectures

 

Von Neumann Computer Architecture

Organization of a conventional computer

 

                   A Computer consists of six major components that correspend closely to major aspects of a programming language :

 

1. Data

2. Primitive Operations

3. Sequence Control

4. Data Access

5. Storage Management

6. Operating Environment

 

Explanation:

1. Data

                A computer must provide various kinds of elementary data items and data structures to be manipulated.

 

                A computer has certain built-in data types that can be manipulated directly by hardware primitive operations:

a. integers,

b. single-precision (e.g., one-word) reals, also called floating-point numbers,

c. fixed-length character strings,

d. fixed-length bit strings (where the length is equal to the number of bits that fit into a single word of storage).

 

2. Primitive Operations

                A computer must provide a set of primitive operations useful for manipulating the data.

               

a. primitives for arithmetic on each built-in numeric data type (e.g., real and integer addition, subtraction, multiplication, and

division),

 

b. primitives for testing various properties of data items (e.g., test for zero, positive, and negative numbers),

 

c. primitives for accessing and modifying various parts of a data item (e.g., retrieve or store a character in a word and retrieve or

store an operand address in an instruction),

 

d. primitives for controlling input-output (I/O) devices, and primitives for sequence control (e.g., unconditional and return jumps).

 

3. Sequence Control

                A computer must provide mechanisms for controlling the sequence in which the primitive operations are to be executed.

 

Dia. : Program interpretation and execution

 4. Data Access

                A computer must provide mechanisms for controlling the data supplied to each execution of an operation.

 

               Operands values can be accessed from Main memory or Registers. Integer addresses are allocated to the memory locations of Main memory.

 

5. Storage Management

                A computer must provide mechanisms to control the allocation of storage for programs and data. 

 

                It takes nanoseconds to access memory within processor (i.e. registers), microseconds to access Main Memory while milliseconds to access external storage.

                To balance these speeds appropriately, various storage management facilities are employed.

                 For speeding up the imbalance between external data access and the central processor, multiprogramming is often used by the operating system.

                  For speeding up the imbalance between main memory and the central processor, a cache memory is used.

 

6. Operating Environment

                A computer must provide mechanisms for communication with an external environment containing programs and data to be processed.

                The operating environment of a computer ordinarily

consists of a set of peripheral storage and I/O devices.

  

Structure of a Typical Language Implementation

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