TC2: A one-address accumulator machine
In this section, you will learn about a computer that implements a memory-to-register architecture. This is a very simple machine that implements a one-address instruction format (like an 8-bit CISC microprocessor from the 1970s).
The TC2 model can be used to simulate classic 8-bit microprocessors that are found in low-cost computer systems (e.g., controllers in mechanical devices). It also teaches you about the trade-off between simplicity (of the computer) and complexity (of the software that is constrained by the primitive architecture).
Unlike modern RISC architectures with data-processing operations between two registers, this computer implements a dyadic operation between one operand in the accumulator and the other operand, which is either a literal or the contents of memory; for example, ADD M adds the contents of memory location M to the accumulator, and ADD #5 adds a literal to the contents of the accumulator. This computer does...