program counter
<hardware> (PC, or "instruction address register") A register in the
central processing unit that contains the addresss of the next instruction to be
executed. The PC is automatically incremented after each instruction is fetched
to point to the following instruction. It is not normally manipulated like an
ordinary register but instead, special instructions are provided to alter the
flow of control by writing a new value to the PC, e.g. JUMP, CALL, RTS.
(1995-03-21)
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