Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 10
Claim 1
Independent Claim
80 words
A word organised data processor having a natural data flow between memory and registers in transfer units of words aligned in both memory and registers on word boundaries, wherein, to enable handling of variable length sequences of information items, each item individually shorter than a word - e.g., character strings -, apparatus is inserted between the memory and the registers, responsive to invoked individual instructions, to transfer data therebetween, word boundary aligned at the registers and variably aligned at memory.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
80 words
A word organised data processor having a natural data flow between memory and registers in transfer units of words aligned in both memory and registers on word boundaries, wherein, to enable handling of variable length sequences of information items, each item individually shorter than a word - e.g., character strings -, apparatus is inserted between the memory and the registers, responsive to invoked individual instructions, to transfer data therebetween, word boundary aligned at the registers and variably aligned at memory.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
104 words
A processor as claimed in claim 1, wherein the inserted apparatus includes instruction decoding means for decoding instructions and providing a command signal in response to a single manipulation instruction; means in response to a command signal from the instruction decoding means for accessing the contiguous variable length sequence of information items from the memory, the first information item of the sequence being stored in the memory without restriction, i.e., potentially not on a word boundary; and means for providing the sequence to a plurality of data processing registers, the first information item of the sequence being presented aligned on the first register boundary.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
28 words
A processor as claimed in claim 2, wherein the apparatus further includes means for altering the positions of the information items in a word component of the sequence.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
26 words
A processor as claimed in any preceding claim wherein each information item is the same integral sub-multiple of the processor word size - i.e., a byte.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
23 words
A processor as claimed in claim 4, wherein the inserted apparatus includes means for comparing bytes in the sequence with a predefined byte.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
34 words
A processor as claimed in claim 5, wherein the inserted apparatus further includes means for writing the byte sequence from the registers to the memory by updating individual byte locations in the memory means.
Claim 8
Dependent Claim
43 words
A processor as claimed in claim 6 wherein the writing means for storing the byte sequence in memory includes means for determining a predetermined byte in the registers to be the trailing byte in the last word of the register stored byte sequence.
Claim 9
Dependent Claim
31 words
A processor as claimed in claim 7, wherein the byte sequence includes either a predefined byte character specifying sequence termination or a count specifying the number of bytes in the sequence.
Claim 10
Dependent Claim
47 words
A processor as claimed in claim 8, wherein the instruction specifies a first register of a sequence of registers and the apparatus includes means for storing the byte sequence in the specified first register and sufficient of the remaining registers in the natural processor nominated sequence thereof.