Little Man Computer: Multiplication

calculator-lmcWrite an LMC program to let the user enter two numbers, num1 and num2.
The program should output the results of multiplying these two numbers: num1 x num2.

LMC Simulators

Solution


While checking the Little Man Computer Instruction Set (See table at the bottom of this post), you will have noticed that, through there are two instructions for adding (ADD) and subtracting (SUB) numbers, there is no instruction for multiplying two numbers.

The solution to overcome this, is two consider a multiplication as a series of additions. For instance:

5 * 4 = 5 + 5 + 5 + 5

This is how we will implement our multiplication algorithm:

        INP
        STA NUM1
        INP 
        STA NUM2
LOOP    LDA TOTAL
        ADD NUM1
        STA TOTAL
        LDA NUM2
        SUB ONE
        STA NUM2
        BRP LOOP
        LDA TOTAL
        SUB NUM1
        STA TOTAL
        OUT
        HLT
NUM1    DAT
NUM2    DAT
ONE     DAT 1
TOTAL   DAT 0

LMC Instruction Set


Note that in the following table “xx” refers to a memory address (aka mailbox) in the RAM. The online LMC simulator has 100 different mailboxes in the RAM ranging from 00 to 99.

Mnemonic Name Description Op Code
INP INPUT Retrieve user input and stores it in the accumulator. 901
OUT OUTPUT Output the value stored in the accumulator. 902
LDA LOAD Load the Accumulator with the contents of the memory address given. 5xx
STA STORE Store the value in the Accumulator in the memory address given. 3xx
ADD ADD Add the contents of the memory address to the Accumulator 1xx
SUB SUBTRACT Subtract the contents of the memory address from the Accumulator 2xx
BRP BRANCH IF POSITIVE Branch/Jump to the address given if the Accumulator is zero or positive. 8xx
BRZ BRANCH IF ZERO Branch/Jump to the address given if the Accumulator is zero. 7xx
BRA BRANCH ALWAYS Branch/Jump to the address given. 6xx
HLT HALT Stop the code 000
DAT DATA LOCATION Used to associate a label to a free memory address. An optional value can also be used to be stored at the memory address.

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