Welcome to the Architecture Jungle. Here you will explore and conquer Instruction Set Architectures (ISA’s). The instruction set architecture (ISA) is the portion of the machine that's visible to the programmer or compiler writer: it specifies the machine in enough detail so that one can code programs in machine language.

The purpose of this web page is to provide an introduction to the different types of architectures available. The architecture jungle consists of a discussion of three different types of architectures: Stack machines, Accumulator machines, and General Purpose Register (GPR) machines.

Your mission is to explore the jungle and understand the three different architectures discussed. You will venture into different parts of the jungle as you view this web page.

The first part of the jungle explains the basic computer process to better understand how each architecture works. You will be able to fully visualize what is happening within. The basic computer control process consists of four steps: Fetch Instruction, Decode Instruction, Execute Instruction, and Write Back / Store the results. This web page will provide a general overview of each of these four steps. This will be especially useful for anyone trying to understand Instruction Set Architectures.

As you continue your adventure into the Architecture Jungle, you will explore the three architectures: Stack machines, Accumulator machines, and General Purpose Registers. This web page will go into depth about each of the types and how each one has its own unique characteristics and general purposes. Detailed examples of each type will be provided. The purpose of describing each type of architecture is to identify that there are several architectures available and each serve a different purpose.

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!!! Find your way through the Architecture Jungle and have a better understanding of the three different architectures out there.