Little Man Computer

Little Man Computer emulator in Node.

Specifications

assemble

assemble is a function which takes in a string of newline-delimited Mnemonic, or Numeric, instructions, with or without labels, and outputs an array of numeric instructions.

commands

commands is an enum mapping each mnemonic to it's command code. For example, ADD is mapped to 100

Computer

Computer is a constructor that is used to create a Little Man Computer. This constructor takes an options argument defined below.

options

• inbox An array with the inputs for the program. If this array doesn't exist or is too small when the computer requires an input, the program will thrown an error.
• mailboxes An array with the numeric codes that make up the program.
• logOutbox Boolean value specifying whether or not to log outputs as they happen to console.log. Defaults to false

The methods and attributes in the Computer object are defined below

run()

This method runs the computer until it reaches a halt statement.

step(steps=1)

This method runs the computer the specified number of steps, and then pauses.

outbox

This property is an Array consisting of the outputs of the program.

accumulator

This is a number which represents the current state of the accumulator.

programCounter

This is a number which identifies the next mailbox index to be evaluated for a command. When paused using step, this will point to the next instruction to be run.

inboxIndex

This is the index of the next inbox instruction to be retrieved.

Usage Example

const LMC = require('little-man-computer');
//This program takes a user input and counts down to zero
const countdown = `     INP
     OUT      // Initialize output
LOOP BRZ QUIT // If the accumulator value is 0, jump to the memory address labeled QUIT
     SUB ONE  // Label this memory address as LOOP, The instruction will then subtract the value stored at address ONE from the accumulator
     OUT
     BRA LOOP // Jump (unconditionally) to the memory address labeled LOOP
QUIT HLT      // Label this memory address as QUIT
ONE  DAT 1    // Store the value 1 in this memory address, and label it ONE (variable declaration)`;
const assembledCode = LMC.assemble(countdown);
const computer = new LMC.Computer({
  inbox: [5],
  mailboxes: assembledCode,
  logOutput: false
});
computer.run();
console.log(computer.output); //[5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0]

Caveats

BRZ Negative Flag

Does not branch if accumulator's negative flag is set (accumulator is -1).

Overflow on ADD

The result will be -1.

Underflow on SUB

The result will be -1.