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14 votes
2 answers
2k views

Origin of "arithmetic" and "logical" for signed and unsigned shifts

The assembly language for many processors use the phrase "arithmetic shift" to represent the bitwise shift of a signed value, and "logical shift" for an unsigned value. The two ...
DrSheldon's user avatar
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19 votes
1 answer
4k views

How did the 6502 ALU perform a decrement?

Assuming that this diagram is correct: Instructions like INC, INX, and INY can easily perform increment using ALU sum with data on B input, 0 on A input and carry_in set. But how do instructions like ...
Johnmph's user avatar
  • 389
10 votes
5 answers
5k views

What was the main purpose of bitshift instructions in CPU?

As far as I know, even simple RISC microcontroller have a bitshift operator, and honestly I had to use it only once when I had to compute a division on a MCU that could not do divisions in the ALU. ...
Onirepap's user avatar
  • 119
10 votes
5 answers
1k views

Which CPUs had instructions leaving data registers in an unspecified state?

When an ALU performs a floating point division operation using the non-restoring or the SRT algorithm, it maintains the current value of the "remainder" (in quotes, because it is not a true ...
Leo B.'s user avatar
  • 19.4k