Patent GB-1115551-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to data processing systems
Inventor: HARTLEY DAVID
IPC: G06F9/26
Filed: 1965-11-11
Abstract: 1,115,551. Indirect addressing by microprogramme. AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE & ELECTRIC CO. Ltd. 2 Nov., 1966 [11 Nov., 1965], No. 48008/65. Heading G4A. In a stored programme data processing device including a control unit, a main store, an order register for storing an order word appropriate to a main programme order, said order word being formed of an instruction-defining code and at least one address code, a first functional unit controlled by said control unit to address said main store, a second functional unit controlled by said control unit to perform arithmetic operations, a pre-programmed microprogramme store for generating control signals for the instruction specified and addressed at the start of any main programme order by the code contained in the order register which defines the instruction, said instruction code forming the first of a series of sequential codes which define a micro-programme of microorders to be used to extract control information for the micro-programme store for use in said control unit for the control of the data processing device in the execution of said instruction, an indirect address operation is initiated under the control of a marking in a particular element of the order register directly associated with said address code and means are provided for detecting said marking and for transferring the instruction code from the order register to a subsidiary register and for replacing said instruction code by a particular instruction code relative to the indirect address operation and defining a micro-programme which enables the micro-programme store (a) to control the first functional unit to address the main store with the store address in the order register (b) to control the second functional unit to replace the store address in the order register by the address read from the store location specified by that address; and (o) to effect a test to determine whether the address read from said store location is an indirect address and if not to transfer the original instruction code from said subsidiary register back to the order register thereby re-entering the main programme order. The invention is described as applied to a data processing device of the type disclosed in Specification 1,105,245 and comprising an indexing unit IU (Fig. 1, not shown), an arithmetic unit (AU), a memory unit (STS), and a control unit (CU) including a pre-programmed micro-programme unit employing a plugboard translation field (MPS) as disclosed in Specification 1,105,242. The 48-bit order words (Fig. 3, not shown) including an order code part and two address fields are formed as follows: bits 1-8 are the order code and serve to address the first instruction of the required mioro-programme in the micro-programme store (MPS), bits 9-24 define a first store address, bit 25 indicates whether or not this first address is an indirect address (binary 1 if it is), bits 26-28 are modifier bits which define a modifier register whose contents are to be added to the first store address if modification is required and bits 29-18 have significances corresponding to bits 9-28 but in respect of the second store address. The address from store which replaces the indirect address may itself be an indirect address. The store may be a magnetic core matrix store.