COMPUTER SYSTEM HAVING A MULTI-POINTER BRANCH INSTRUCTION AND METHOD

A computer and a method are described having multiple pointers for a branch instruction. A branch target instruction called by the branch instruction is divided into H parts locatable by K pointers. L of the K pointers are stored in the branch instruction and K-L pointers are stored with the H parts of the branch target instruction. A tag identifies a variable boundary between first and second halves of the memory, word by word. The first half of the memory space contains V of H parts of the instructions and the second half of the memory space contains the H-V parts. The parts in the first and second halves of the memory space are compressed and decompressed in parallel.