DATA AVAILABLE INDICATOR FOR AN EXHAUSTED OPERAND STRING

The present invention relates to an apparatus for providing a data available indication while inhibiting the reading of operand data beyond the last word of an operand data string. The data available indication operates to enable additional cycles to be generated for completing the execution of the instruction. The apparatus includes a memory element, which has a plurality of locations, each of the plurality of locations corresponding to a respective location of a memory device where the operand data string is stored. The memory element stores information which indicates when the corresponding location is the last word of the operand data string. A read address register which contains the read address value of the memory device includes an input strobe terminal which receives an enable signal based on the information stored in the memory element, thereby enabling or inhibiting the updating of the read address value in the read address register.