Review of "Microprogrammed Control and Reliable Design of Small Computers, by George D. Kraft and Wing N. Toy", Prentice Hall, 1981

Abstract

The book is a detailed exposition of the methods and philosophies of Bell Laboratories in the two areas indicated by the title: microprogramming and reliable design techniques. After an introductory chapter devoted to the differences between conventional and microprogrammed control units that includes basic architectures, control store organizations, emulation, and nanoprogramming concepts, the real meat of the text begins with the discussion of internal processor control in the second chapter. Included in this chapter are vertical ano horizontal microprogramming, various techniques for generating microprogram store addresses, including conditional branching instructions, microsubroutines, functional branching, microprogram loops, interrupts, and microprogram sequencing. Numerous examples and optlons are provided for each of these topics.