Virtual Machine

Hello /prague/

I'm working on implementing a virtual machine of my own design. I started by writing the ALU, and I decided that it should operate on 32 bit words. It allows for many of the basic functions (NOT, AND, OR, XOR, >>, <<, +, -, *, /).

I am entirely new to designing machines (I'm a college sophomore.) and I ran into the problem of representation of floating point data. Is this implemented directly into the hardware of computers, or does software manipulate words to create floating point number manipulation higher up?

I think you're doing it wrong. You really shouldn't have an ALU interface called by the other parts of the processor.
What you need to do is to create instructions such as:
- Clear floating-point register;
- Clear integer register;
- Add integer immediate to floating-pointer register;
- Add floating-point immediate to floating-pointer register;
- Add integer immediate to integer register;
- Add floating-point immediate to integer register.