In computer engineering and in programming language implementations, a stack machine is a real or emulated computer that uses a pushdown stack rather than individual machine registers to evaluate each sub-expression in the program. A stack computer is programmed with a reverse Polish notation instruction set.
The common alternative to stack machines are register machines, in which each instruction explicitly names the specific registers to use for operand and result values.
Read more about Stack Machine: Practical Expression-Stack Machines, Computers Using Call Stacks and Stack Frames
Famous quotes containing the words stack and/or machine:
““Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)
“The chrysanthemums’ astringent fragrance comes
Each year to disguise the clanking mechanism
Of machine within machine within machine.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)