oltdaniel / clap

:clap: the vm

clap 👏

the vm

Idea

This project is mainly for research purposes.

The idea behind this project is, to create an virtual machine (=machine) that includes all the issues with computers, for example an overflow in the RAM or wrong memory allocation.

To allow these things there is only a single memory which will contain the code in the lower part of the memory, followed by some space for the heap and the stack on the highest address. This will allow the code to change itself during the runtime.

Installation

# Get the code
$ git clone https://github.com/oltdaniel/clap.git
$ cd clap
# Compile the code
$ make

Usage

# Execute the machine
$ bin/clap help
# Run an example
$ bin/clap run examples/math.asm
# Clean the project
$ make clean

Example

; Jump over the variable space
jump main

; Define the address label math
.nam math

; Set 64bit of the memory to 0
.var 0

; Define the main label
.nam main

; Move 12 to the register 0
move r00 #12

; Add the value of register 0
; to the variable
addi math r00

About

The clap machine is an 64bit based virtual machine. It has 20 registers, an memory that combines the code memory, the heap as well as the stack. To make use of these parts the clap machine uses its own assembly language, that will be compiled down to an bytecode file.

One of the first goals is it, to define an ready to use instruction set, that can be implemented and executed on the machine. For more current in-progress tasks, take a look at the issues.

Documentation

Documentation can be found here in /doc.

License

Just do what you'd like to

Credit

Daniel Oltmanns - creator

clap's Issues

implementation - access to flags and pointers

Add instructions to allow the change of pointers and flags.

implementation - implement the flags

Keep track of the flags during math operations and update them.

• Overflow Flag
• Parity Flag
• Zero Flag
• Negative Flag

address alias - name cannot be used until it is defined

The following assembly code can't be executed, because the named address is not defined yet.

jump main
; Some variables
.nam main
; The main code

Suggested solution: Define the labels before, and set the address space afterwards. Example code:

; Pre-define the name
.def main
; Jump to the alias
jump main
; Some variables
.nam main
; The main code

implementation - implement the heap

Allocate memory based on the parameters to the instruction and update the allocation pointer.