Configurable simulator for computer architecture and organization

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents a novel visual educational configurable simulator for computer architecture and organization (COCONUT). By using the simulator students can create their own processor with an arbitrary architecture and simple organization on the register transfer level, write an assembly program to be executed on the processor and observe the instruction execution phases of the program on the processor. The students can create their processor by using the simulator of a computer system with fixed and configurable parts. The configurable part allows students to use the simulator for defining the instruction decoding of the processor operation unit and the content of the microprogram memory of the processor control unit. The simulator's usage was evaluated at the University of Belgrade—School of Electrical Engineering on two courses for two consecutive school years. The evaluation results showed that 80% of the students stated that the simulator helped them to better understand the course material and that they had a positive user experience with the simulator.