Hello. I was wondering if i could get some help with SKIPCOND for MARIE aseemble language. Here is my problem

I need to write a program that takes 8 numbers and finds the lowest and highest of the 8 numbers. I'm getting stuck on the skipcond. for example here is the psuedo code i've come up with

Input
Store A
Input
Store B
Input
etc for all 8 numbers
//Compare using skipcond
If A < B
Load A
Store Lowest
Else
Load B
Store Lowest

And i would do this for all 8 numbers until i found the lowest. And then i would go back through and use the same code in reverse for finding the highest. Trouble is i don't know how to compare the two numbers to eachother using Skipcond. Can anybody provide some insight into this? I've read my book and still don't quite understand fully.

 

The SKIPCOND instruction is actually 4 instructions in one. It examines the AC register for one of the three conditions

1. Less than 0
2. Equal to 0
3. Greater than 0

If the condition, selected in the SKIPCOND instruction, is TRUE the next instruction is skipped. In your pseudo code you have written "If A < B" which is not something that SKIPCOND knows how to handle. What you must do is perform some arithmetic operation on A and B leaving the result in the AC register. Then you can apply SKIPCOND to the result and act accordingly. The instruction to be skipped should be a jump to the instructions to the instructions for the false case. When you become better at coding and arranging things to your advantage you might find a way to use the single instruction in the "skip slot" [my terminology -- not the authors of MARIE's terminology] so that it falls into the instruction sequence for the true case.


The forth case of the SKIPCOND instruction is to do nothing at all, essentially a NOP(no operation) instruction.