Program control via transition matrices—a novel application of micro-programming

  • Authors:
  • S. Ron Oliver;Nell D. Jones

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Kansas;University of Kansas

  • Venue:
  • SIGMINI '76 Proceedings of the ACM SIGMINI/SIGPLAN interface meeting on Programming systems in the small processor environment
  • Year:
  • 1976

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Abstract

The problem of processing and interpreting character-strings in a systematic, efficiently implementable manner has given rise to a variety of decision- (or transition-) table and transition-diagram techniques. These have been used in the design and/or coding of string-oriented processors, such as lexical analysis portions of compilers. All these techniques share in common the idea of an input driven transition control. This report describes a micro-coded implementation of a particularly rich concept—the transition matrix (TM). The micro-coded interpreter (ITM) executes the flow-of-control implicit within the structure of the TM. The TM may be coded in a natural, easy to use language (LTMØSP), and then be automatically translated into ITM-usable form by a user-level translator called TMØSP. The completed system (ITM and TMØSP) permits TM-oriented decision-making techniques to be utilized in virtually any task that can be described by means of a transition matrix.