</p>

<p>
Additionally, observation of acausal and “out of thin air” writes is disallowed.
</p>

<p>
Reads of memory locations larger than a single machine word
are encouraged but not required to meet the same semantics
as word-sized memory locations,
observing a single allowed write <i>w</i>.
For performance reasons,
implementations may instead treat larger operations

the name prefix distinguishes
references to the virtual stack pointer from references to the architectural
<code>SP</code> register.
That is, <code>x-8(SP)</code> and <code>-8(SP)</code>
are different memory locations:
the first refers to the virtual stack pointer pseudo-register,
while the second refers to the
hardware's <code>SP</code> register.
</p>

<p>
On machines where <code>SP</code> and <code>PC</code> are