Design and implementation of a flexible and interactive microprogram simulator

Abstract

In the present paper a microprogrammable architecture oriented simulator is described. This simulator structure may be logically subdivided in four independent blocks: Supervisor, Interface Module, Simulation Monitor, Simulation Routines. A high degree of flexibility is obtained by means of a highly hierarchical structure of software and an easy-to-modify table-driven system description. Moreover particular care has been devoted to user-simulator communication via an easy-to-use command language. The use of the simulator in the development of a microprogrammable machine (based on Am2900 bit-slice microprocessors) is described.