Computer Architecture

6

SIMPLE MACHINES

In mechanical engineering, simple machines are a well-known set of standard designs including levers, axles, screws, and pulleys that each perform one function and can be put together to make larger machines. Analogously, computational simple machines are standard designs that are often used as subcomponents of computers. For example, the arithmetic logic unit in a modern CPU—exactly as in Babbage’s Analytical Engine—is made of many such simple machines that each perform one kind of arithmetic, such as addition, multiplication, or shifting.

This chapter introduces a range of simple machines as the next architecture level above ...