I have been reading about e.g. 32-bit microprocessor architectures. I have a simple question: if the maximum number of bits in a floating point number is 32 bits, then how does that number get into the microprocessor for processing? Can it be as part of a machine language instruction? Because if the answer is yes, wouldn’t it have to constitute the entire machine language instruction (in other words, there would be no room left for control bits or opcodes or anything else, since all 32 bits would be used for the number itself). Is that how it is actually done, i.e. is there a machine language command that says “attention CPU: the next machine language command you will read is not actually a command; it is actually a number”.
Or, alternatively, does all “data” that gets fed to a computer have to come in separately, not as part of the machine language instructions?
In particular, I would like to know how Intel microprocessors handle this issue.
My assembly is a bit rusty, but what I can remember is that there is specific registers for instructions, and specific registers for data. So you would literally move your next data item into the relevent registers, and then shove your desired instruction into the AX(?) register.
But, I caution – last time I wrote assembly was back in 2004….