Question

After reading chapter 3 of your textbook, use a browser to research computer registers.

What are the relative advantages and disadvantages of general-purpose registers compared to separate address and data registers?

Answer 1

The relative advantages of general-purpose registers compared to separate address and data registers are:

(i) General-purpose registers can store both address and data while data registers can contain only numeric data and address registers can hold addresses.

(ii) General-purpose registers can store floating point numbers while data registers can not. This happens due to the unification of the register files.

(iii) Can use the CPU more efficiently.

The relative disadvantages of general-purpose registers compared to separate address and data registers are:

(i) General-purpose registers cause more compiler overhead than address registers and data registers.

Hope this helps.