instruction set

commands which the CPU is able to perform

An instruction set is (a list of) all instructions, and all their variations, that a processor can execute.Instructions include:arithmetic such as add and subtractlogic instructions such as and, or, and notdata instructions such as move, input, output, load, and storecontrol flow instructions such as goto, if ... goto, call, and return.An instruction set, or instruction set architecture (ISA), is the part of the computer architecture related to programming, including the native data types, instructions, registers, addressing modes, memory architecture, interrupt and exception handling, and external I/O. An ISA includes a specification of the set of opcodes (machine language), the native commands implemented by a particular CPU design.
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<architecture> The collection of machine language instructions that a particular processor understands.
The term is almost synonymous with "instruction set architecture" since the instructions are fairly meaningless in isolation from the registers etc. that they manipulate.
(1999-07-05)