The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
orthogonal instruction set
An instruction set where all (or most)
instructions have the same format and all registers and
addressing modes can be used interchangeably - the choices
of op code, register, and addressing mode are mutually
independent (loosely speaking, the choices are
"orthogonal"). This contrasts with some early Intel
microprocessors where only certain registers could be used
by certain instructions.
Examples include the PDP-11, 680x0, ARM, VAX.
(2002-06-26)