Welcome to the IBM 704 simulator! To learn how it works, we'll walk through an example.
In the middle column we have the general memory of our computer. This is where all the data comprising our program
lives. The general memory is broken into 8192
words, or
registers, of 36 bits each (although here we
only show 6 words). Each word represents a single, complete unit of data representing either a number, or an
instruction. On the right we have some special registers that hold data while the program is executed.
Now, reading binary is rather difficult, so we’ve allowed you to see the possible interpretations of a word by
mousing over it. Note that the computer doesn’t know how to interpret words automatically-- it is up to the
programmer to tell the computer how to interpret each word. If one makes a mistake, they could end up using the
program as data, or trying to execute numbers as instructions!
In the left column we have the code that comprises our program. For this simulator, the code is written in
assembly language. Assembly language is coding language that is very “low-level”, in programming terms: this means
that it more closely resembles machine code. For example, in the IBM 704 assembly language, each line of code,
called an
instruction, corresponds to a single word in memory, a simple 1-to-1 correspondence you wouldn't
see in a higher level programming language like C. You can see that one of the instructions and one of the words
in general memory are highlighted in blue; these are the same instruction, which you can verify by mousing over the
word.
Now to analyze the code section on the left. Each instruction is denoted by a three-letter code followed by a number
that corresponds to the register number in the General Memory that you want to perform that operation on. For those
coming from a coding background in modern languages, this should be emphasized: there are no variables that hold
values. Instead, everything is referred to by address. For example,
CLA(Clear and Add)
4 , clears the
accumulator on the right and places the value found at register number 4 into
it. You should see register 0 highlighted in blue and register 4 highlighted in pink. If you mouse over
register 4, you should see it contains 12 as a fixed point value. If you press the step button, you will execute
the instruction highlighted in blue. You should see the accumulator on the right change value to 12 as well.
You’ll also see the Instruction Location Counter increase by 1 as you move to the next instruction.
Now another strange thing: you cannot simply add two numbers from two registers together (something that even modern
assembly languages allow). Instead you must use the special accumulator register to do addition. The next
operation,
ADD 5, adds the value at register number 5, which is 30, to the value of the accumulator.
Press the step button again to see the accumulator change again. Finally,
STO 6, which is short for
Store 6, stores the number in the accumulator into register number 6. Mouse over register 6 and you’ll see that
it is
12 + 30 = 42, the
Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. All that just to do some simple addition!
Want to see the whole program run at once? Press the reset button to reset the demo and click run!