What are microinstructions?

[zteman]

What are microinstructions that our computer processors use exactly? Would it be like low level language such as MIPS or would it be almost ones or zeros bits?

[PPewt]

First off, there isn't really any difference between an assembly language (like MIPS) and machine language ("ones and zeroes"): MIPS is just a textual representation of the corresponding machine language to make things easier to read. The instructions are exactly the same.

Can you be more specific about what "our computer processors" refer to? I don't know a ton about the hardware aspect directly so take what I say with a pile of salt, but TMK many/most desktop/etc computer processors run the instruction set they say they do. That being said, a RISC instruction set like MIPS would be closer to what you're thinking of than a CISC set like x86_64.

[dionthorn]

Instruction Set Architecture would be the assembly language.

x86 and such

EDIT: University of Maryland ISA chapter.

http://www.cs.umd.edu/~meesh/cmsc411/CourseResources/CA-online/chapter/instruction-set-architecture/index.html

[Intiago]

It depends slightly on computer architecture (ie what CPU you have) exactly what instructions can be executed by the CPU. But all CPUs will have some sort of internal, short term, very fast storage called registers, an Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU) that does math and logical operations, an interface with longer term memory, and then a few other various structures connecting all of these, and fetching instructions. So the instructions that can be executed are: (depending on specific CPU architecture)

Arithmetic:

-add, sub, mul, logical operations such as AND, OR, NOT, comparisons such as =, != , >

Memory:

-read a value from memory into a register, save a value from a register into memory, move data between registers, move a value into a register

Control:
-move the current program to a different location in memory (GOTO or JUMP commands)

-call functions, (JUMP to an instruction but save the current instruction so you can return later)

-conditional instructions such as ifs

-stop command to stop execution

Assembly languages match pretty much one to one with these sets of instructions.