- Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia and in the geopolitical region known as the Middle East. With a population of over 46 million, it is the 14th-most populous country on the Asian continent and the 33rd-most populous country in the world. It is a federal parliamentary republic that consists of 18 governorates. The country is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the southwest, and Syria to the west. The capital and largest city is Baghdad. The Iraqi people are diverse, with similarly diverse geography and wildlife. As part of the Arab and Muslim world, most Iraqis are Muslims – minority faiths include Christianity, Yazidism, Mandaeism, Yarsanism, and Zoroastrianism. The official languages of Iraq are Arabic and Kurdish; others also recognized in specific regions are Turkish (Turkmen), Suret (Assyrian), and Armenian.
- Latches inside: Reverse-engineering the Intel 8086’s instruction register (righto.com)
The Intel 8086 microprocessor is one of the most influential chips ever created; it led to the x86 architecture that dominates desktop and server computing today. But it is still simple enough that its circuitry can be studied under the microscope and understood. In this post, I explain the implementation of a dynamic latch, a circuit that holds a single bit. The 8086 has over 80 latches scattered throughout the chip, holding a variety of important processor state bits,1 but I’ll focus on the eight latches that implement the instruction register and hold the instruction that is being executed.
