PDP-8 Instruction Set

This is a brief outline of the instruction set of the PDP-8, for a full reference see PDP-8 Small Computer Handbook

The PDP-8 was designed as a low-cost machine, so it’s architecture is very minimal, just a single 12-bit accumulator (AC), a 12-bit instruction pointer, a single bit link (carry) register (L) and an optional Multiplier Quotient (MQ) register.

Each instruction is 12-bits in length and has a three bit operation code, which gives (sort of) 8 possible instructions. One of the instructions, OPR – microcoded operations has a set of bits which initiate various operations giving roughly 34 extra instructions.

Instructions 0-5 have the same layout:

 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11
+-------+---+---+------------------+
| Op    | I | Z |   Offset         |
+-------+---+---+------------------+

bits 0-3 are the opcode

bit 3  is the indirect bit – any address generated by this instruction points to the actual address. There are some examples below

bit 4 is the zero page bit – if this is zero, the offset field references the current 512 byte page, if this is one, it refers to the first page of memory (0000-0077).

bits 5-11 are the offset into either the current page or the zero page.

Instructions 0-5

000 – AND and the memory field with AC, result to AC

001 – TAD add the memory field to AC. There is no load instruction, so to load a number into AC, it’s idiomatic to clear the accumulator and add the operand in.

010 – ISZ Increment the memory operand, and skip the next instruction if the result is zero

011 – DCA Deposit and clear AC – this is the complement to TAD, this allows a  store followed by a load to be two instructions rather than three.

100 – JMS Jump to subroutine – Saves the next instruction address in the calculated memory address, and jumps to the address after the stored word.  There is no return instruction, so to return from a subroutine, use an indirect jump to the subroutine address (example below)

101 – JMP Jump – transfer control to the calculated address

Instruction 6 IOT – I/O Transfer

This instrcution is used to communicate with the various PDP-8 peripherals, for example see my earlier post Dectape PDP-8 Interface for an example of how it is used.

The instruction has this format:

0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8   9 10 11
+--------+----------------+--------+
| 110    |    Device      |Function|
+--------+----------------+--------+

I’ll describe the various IOT instructions along with the device.

Instruction 7 OPR – MIcrocoded Operations

This is the most complicated instruction of the PDP-8. Apart from the operation code, it is a set of bit fields which execute miscellaneous operations.

bit 3 = 0

4 - Clear AC
5 - Clear link
6 - Ones complement AC
7 - Complement link
11 - Increment I,AC
8 - Rotate L,AC left
9 - Rotate L,AC right
10 - Swap top six bits of AC with bottom 6 bit

The reason for the ordering is to allow for more useful combinations of instructions.  For example:

7201 (111 010 000 001) – Clear AC, Clear link, Increment AC -> sets AC to 1 in a single instruction.

bit 3 = 1, bit 8 = 1, bit 11 = 0

5 - Skip next instruction if AC >= 0
6 - Skip next instruction if AC != 0
7 - Skip next instruction if L = 0
4 - Clear AC
9 - Inclusive OR front panel switches into AC
10 - Halt

bit 3 = 1, bit 11 = 1 – EAE expansion unit

4 - Clear AC
5 - Or MQ with AC
6 - Copy step counter to AC
7 - Move AC into MQ
8-10 - Arithmetic function:
   000 - No op
   001 - Step counter load (from next word)
   010 - Multiply (MQ * next word => MQ,AC)
   011 - Divide (MQ,AC / next word => MQ,AC)
   100 - Normalise - Shift AC left until AC0,AC1 are differnt, number of
         shifts are stored in the step counter
   101 - Shift left MQ,AC
   110 - Arithmetic shift right MQ,AC
   111 - Logical shift right MQ,AC

Examples

Add two numbers

 

0200 7300  CLA,CLL            // Set AC to 0
0201 1004  TAD A              // Add first number to AC
0202 1005  TAD B              // Add second number to AC
0203 7402  HALT               // Stop, AC will be displayed on the panel
0204 0012 A: 12
0205 0020 B: 20

Loop n times

 

<pre class="wp-block-syntaxhighlighter-code brush: plain; notranslate">0200 7300 CLA,CLL          // Zero AC
0201 1055 TAD N            // Load loop<br />0202 7401 CIA              // Assembler shortcut for negate AC<br />                           // Actually ones complement & increment<br />                           // See OPR instruction above. <br />                           // This is done because counting up <br />                           // is easier than down<br />0203 4xxx LOOP: JSR DOSTUFF // Do loop function<br />0204 2000 ISZ              // Increment AC and skip next if AC = 0<br />0205 7003 JMP LOOP         // Repeat<br />// End of loop<br />0255 0010 N: 10</pre><p>&nbsp;</p>

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