Abstract: A computer instruction set is presented in accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention. Some instructions within the instruction set have immediate fields which are allowed to vary in length and fill up all unused bit positions in the instructions. A sign bit is in a fixed location for instructions within the instruction set. For example, the sign bit may be right justified with respect to the immediate field, that is the sign bit is put in the least significant (rightmost) bit position. This allows time-critical suboperations to proceed without waiting for the value of the sign bit to be located and decoded.

Abstract: A computer and an instruction set are presented which allow for a number of assists to be easily incorporated into the computer, and which allow for an instruction set extension. The computer is designed to support instructions which move data between an assist and a location, although an assist's operation and design need not be defined at the computer's date of design. Instructions are mapped to a particular assist. Assist instructions can be either executed in hardware by an assist, or emulated in software via a trap.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for efficient branching within a central processing unit with overlapped fetch and execute cycles which optimizes the efficient fetching of instructions.

Abstract: A computer having a cache memory and a main memory is provided with a transformation unit between the main memory and the cache memory so that at least a portion of an information unit retrieved from the main memory may be transformed during retrieval of the information (fetch) from a main memory and prior to storage in the cache memory (cache). In a specific embodiment, an instruction may be predecoded prior to storage in the cache memory. In another embodiment involving a branch instruction, the address of the target of the branch is calculated prior to storing in the instruction cache. The invention has advantages where a particular instruction is repetitively executed since a needed decode operation which has been partially performed previously need not be repeated with each execution of an instruction. Consequently, the latency time of each machine cycle may be reduced, and the overall efficiency of the computing system can be improved.