Week 1: Project Planning & Setup

The Features of the Virtual CPU

Arithmetic Operations:
- ADD: Adds values from two registers.
- SUB: Subtracts the value of one register from another.
- MUL: Multiplies values from two registers.
- DIV: Divides the value of one register by another.
Logical Operations:
- AND: Performs a bitwise AND operation.
- OR: Performs a bitwise OR operation.
- XOR: Performs a bitwise XOR operation.
- NOT: Performs a bitwise NOT operation.
Data Transfer Operations:
- LOAD: Loads a value from memory into a register.
- STORE: Stores the value from a register into memory.
- MOVE: Moves data from one register to another.
Control Flow Instructions:
- JMP: Jumps to a specified memory address.
- JZ: Jumps if the zero flag is set.
- JNZ: Jumps if the zero flag is not set.
- CALL: Calls a subroutine.
- RET: Returns from a subroutine.
Comparison Operations:
- CMP: Compares the values of two registers.
- TEST: Performs a logical comparison between two values.

Registers:
- General-purpose registers (R0, R1, R2, ...)
- Special-purpose registers (Program Counter, Status Register, Stack Pointer)
Memory:
- Main memory to store instructions and data.
- Support for memory addressing modes (direct, indirect, indexed).
Flags and Status Register:
- Zero flag, Carry flag, Overflow flag, Sign flag.
Interrupt Handling:
- Basic interrupt system to handle hardware interrupts and exceptions.

Pipeline:
- Implement basic pipelining stages (Fetch, Decode, Execute, Memory Access, Write-back).
Cache:
- Implement a simple cache mechanism to speed up memory access.
I/O Operations:
- Input and output operations to simulate interaction with peripherals.

Assembler:
- A program to convert assembly language instructions into machine code.
Debugger:
- Basic debugging tools to step through instructions, inspect register values, and set breakpoints.
Simulator/Emulator:
- An environment to simulate the execution of programs on the vCPU.
Documentation:
- Comprehensive documentation of the ISA, instruction formats, and operational behavior.

Performance Metrics:
- Tools to measure execution time, memory usage, and other performance metrics.
User Interface:
- A simple CLI to interact with the vCPU, load programs, and visualize execution.

Performance: C++ offers high performance, which is crucial for CPU emulation.
Control: Greater control over system resources and memory management.
Extensive Libraries: Access to numerous libraries for various functionalities.

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