Data Handling & Memory Operations

• set a register to a fixed constant value
• copy data from a memory location to a register, or vice versa (a machine instruction is often called move; however, the term is misleading). Used to store the contents of a register, the result of a computation, or to retrieve stored data to perform a computation on it later. Often called load and store operations
• read and write data from hardware devices

Arithmetic & Logic Operations

• add, subtract, multiply, or divide the values of two registers, placing the result in a register, possibly setting one or more condition codes in a status register
  • increment, decrement in some ISAs, saving operand fetch in trivial cases
• perform bitwise operations, e.g. taking the conjunction and disjunction of corresponding bits in a pair of registers, taking the negation of each bit in a register
• compare two values in registers (for example, to see if one is less, or if they are equal)
• floating-point instructions for arithmetic on floating-point numbers

Control Flow Operations

• branch to another location in the program and execute instructions there
• conditionally branch to another location if a certain condition holds
• indirectly branch to another location
• call another block of code, while saving the location of the next instruction as a point to return to

Coprocessor Instructions

• load/store data to and from a coprocessor or exchange with CPU registers
• perform coprocessor operations