The Simplified Instructional Computer (also abbreviated SIC) is a hypothetical computer system introduced in System Software: An Introduction to Systems Programming, by Leland Beck. Due to the fact that most modern microprocessors include subtle, complex functions for the purposes of efficiency, it can be difficult to learn systems programming using a real-world system. The Simplified Instructional Computer solves this by abstracting away these complex behaviors in favor of an architecture that is clear and accessible for those wanting to learn systems programming.
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SIC Architecture
The SIC machine has basic addressing, storing most memory addresses hexadecimal integer format. Similar to most modern computing systems, the SIC architecture stores all data in binary and uses the two's complement to represent negative values at the machine level. Memory storage in SIC consists of 8-bit bytes, and all memory addresses in SIC are byte addresses. Any three consecutive bytes form a 24-bit 'word' value, addressed by the location of the lowest numbered byte in the word value. Numeric values are stored as word values, and character values use the 8-bit ASCII system. The SIC machine does not support floating-point hardware and have at most 32,768 bytes of memory. There is also a more complicated machine built on top of SIC called the Simplified Instruction Computer with Extra Equipment (SIC/XE). The XE expansion of SIC adds a 48-bit floating point data type, an additional memory addressing mode, and extra memory (1 megabyte instead of 32,768 bytes) to the original machine. All SIC assembly code is upwards compatible with SIC/XE.
SIC machines have several registers, each 24 bits long and having both a numeric and character representation:
In addition to the standard SIC registers, there are also four additional general-purpose registers specific to the SIC/XE machine:
These five/nine registers allow the SIC or SIC/XE machine to perform most simple tasks in a customized assembly language. In the System Software book, this is used with a theoretical series of operation codes to aid in the understanding of assemblers and linker-loaders required for the execution of assembly language code.
Addressing Modes for SIC and SIC/XE
The Simplified Instruction Computer has three instruction formats, and the Extra Equipment add-on includes a fourth. The instruction formats provide a model for memory and data management. Each format has a different representation in memory:
Both format 3 and format 4 have six-bit flag values in them, consisting of the following flag bits:
Addressing Modes for SIC/XE
SIC Assembly Syntax
SIC uses a special assembly language with its own operation codes that hold the hex values needed to assemble and execute programs. A sample program is provided below to get an idea of what a SIC program might look like. In the code below, there are three columns. The first column represents a forwarded symbol that will store its location in memory. The second column denotes either a SIC instruction (opcode) or a constant value (BYTE or WORD). The third column takes the symbol value obtained by going through the first column and uses it to run the operation specified in the second column. This process creates an object code, and all the object codes are put into an object file to be run by the SIC machine.
COPY START 1000
FIRST STL RETADR
CLOOP JSUB RDREC
LDA LENGTH
COMP ZERO
JEQ ENDFIL
JSUB WRREC
J CLOOP
ENDFIL LDA EOF
STA BUFFER
LDA THREE
STA LENGTH
JSUB WRREC
LDL RETADR
RSUB
EOF BYTE C'EOF'
THREE WORD 3
ZERO WORD 0
RETADR RESW 1
LENGTH RESW 1
BUFFER RESB 4096
.
. SUBROUTINE TO READ RECORD INTO BUFFER
.
RDREC LDX ZERO
LDA ZERO
RLOOP TD INPUT
JEQ RLOOP
RD INPUT
COMP ZERO
JEQ EXIT
STCH BUFFER,X
TIX MAXLEN
JLT RLOOP
EXIT STX LENGTH
RSUB
INPUT BYTE X'F1'
MAXLEN WORD 4096
.
. SUBROUTINE TO WRITE RECORD FROM BUFFER
.
WRREC LDX ZERO
WLOOP TD OUTPUT
JEQ WLOOP
LDCH BUFFER,X
WD OUTPUT
TIX LENGTH
JLT WLOOP
RSUB
OUTPUT BYTE X'06'
END FIRST
If you were to assemble this program, you would get the object code depicted below. The beginning of each line consists of a record type and hex values for memory locations. For example, the top line is an 'H' record, the first 6 hex digits signify its relative starting location, and the last 6 hex digits represent the program's size. The lines throughout are similar, with each 'T' record consisting of 6 hex digits to signify that line's starting location, 2 hex digits to indicate the size (in bytes) of the line, and the object codes that were created during the assembly process.
HCOPY 00100000107A
T0010001E1410334820390010362810303010154820613C100300102A0C103900102D
T00101E150C10364820610810334C0000454F46000003000000
T0020391E041030001030E0205D30203FD8205D2810303020575490392C205E38203F
T0020571C1010364C0000F1001000041030E02079302064509039DC20792C1036
T002073073820644C000006
E001000
Sample program
Given below is a program illustrating data movement in SIC.
LDA FIVE
STA ALPHA
LDCH CHARZ
STCH C1
ALPHA RESW 1
FIVE WORD 5
CHARZ BYTE C'Z'
C1 RESB 1
Emulating the SIC System
Since the SIC and SIC/XE machines are not real machines, the task of actually constructing a SIC emulator is often part of coursework in a systems programming class. The purpose of SIC is to teach introductory-level systems programmers or collegiate students how to write and assemble code below higher-level languages like C and C++. With that being said, there are some sources of SIC-emulating programs across the web, however infrequent they may be.