The {Hardware}-Oriented Microprocessor Simulator, HOMS, Unveils the Secrets and techniques in Black Field Chips

Dr. Panayotis (Panos) Papazoglou, affiliate professor on the Nationwide and Kapodistrian College of Athens (NKUA), has designed a modular system that goals to show about how microprocessors and microcomputers work: the {Hardware}-Oriented Microprocessor Simulator (HOMS).

“On this challenge, a totally working and mature instructional software for studying microprocessors is proposed for the very first time within the literature for increased schooling within the subject of laptop science and laptop engineering,” Papazoglou writes of the HOMS system. “The proposed instructional software [addresses] successfully each limitation of the earlier variations, is predicated on open supply {hardware}, and could be reproduced by everybody.”

The HOMS system goals to supply perception into how an eight-bit microprocessor-based laptop operates, and does so by breaking all the things out into discrete modules. Every register and counter, for instance, is given a devoted two-digit seven-segment show, separate to the system’s main 2.4″ TFT show. Behind every module is an Arduino microcontroller board — both an Arduino UNO or, for the management and show module, an Arduino Mega 2560.

The concept, Papazoglou explains, is to present college students a bodily object representing a given inside element of a easy microprocessor — reasonably than a stable black chip. The design can be customizable, he says: “The instructor or scholar can use any quantity or sort of blocks for constructing the popular microprocessor structure. Based mostly on the quantity and sort of blocks, a instructor or scholar can take a look at a prototype structure or to increase an operation to smaller steps by utilizing extra blocks.”

“The primary benefit of the applied HOMS software,” Papazoglou continues, “is the object-oriented method and the open supply {hardware} which supplies the liberty to any developer not solely to breed the identical software but in addition to implement the entire simulator utilizing completely different blocks (with or with out an LCD, buttons, and many others). Word that the embedded software program makes the distinction.”

The HOMS system is documented in full on Papazoglou’s web site, the place the design is made obtainable underneath the Inventive Commons Attribution-NoCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 license.