A Survey of Advanced Microprocessors and HLL Computer Architectures

A classification is developed for major computer architectures aimed at the narrowing of conceptual gaps between programming languages and architectures. While the high level language (HLL) program of a traditional architecture undergoes the extensive translation process of compilation to arrive at a relatively low level machine language, the HLL of a direct execution architecture is itself the machine language; execution accordingly proceeds without translation. Attention is presently given to reduced architectures, which attempt to reduce the conceptual gap by increasing the performance of the architecture in HLL execution. Complex architectures are divisible into language-directed and language- corresponding, which respectively conduct their translation in software and in hardware. (O.C.)