In a
microprocessor, the memory address
register perpetually holds the
address of the next
memory location to be used and is usually located near the
main memory unit.
When executing a
machine language instruction the
operand contains the address of a memory location to be accessed. The value is copied from the
program instruction in memory to the
memory address register and from then on is accessed from there.
Sometimes called the
memory address or abbreviated
MAR.