COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE

SRIJITH R UNNI

2020503545

1. WHY IS GUINNESS CALLED GUINNESS?

The managing director of Guinness brewery, Sir Hugh Beaver, in 1951 could not settle an argument
as he did not have all the facts. The argument was about which was the fastest game bird in
existence in 1951 could not settle an argument as he did not have all the facts. The argument was
about which was the fastest game bird in existence, but there was no record of such extremes. So, in
order to overcome this ordeal, the idea of creating records came into existence. He hired two
journalists and with their help he wrote the first edition of the now bestseller “The Guinness book of
records”

EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTURE SIMULATOR

Introduction

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) was a famous German-born architect in the U.S in the 20 th
Century. Inspired by his designs, IBM designer Eliot Noyes wanted to design a computer that looked
aesthetically pleasing and not like a “ranch house”. But when he tried to make it look better, it started to
hold no meaning to programmers. To give an analogy, imagine arranging the books in a way that looks
good from the outside. This could mean that the books that we might use more often might also be less
accessible thus rendering this whole idea moot. Noyes realized that there was a gap between
architectural practice and the process to design a useful computing machine.

But the metaphor of ‘ranch house’ had made an impact on other IBM programmers. Frederick P. Brooks
Jr came at this in a different direction. This gave him the idea of building code and not writing it. The
meaning of ‘building code’ was that giving a clear pathway through which instructions and data are
input and processed. This story might not be inspiring but the idea that like a house even computers can
be designed transformed the way in which the world looks at computers.

But in order to make systems perform even better one has to know what is happening inside of it. But
when you open up a computer, 99.9 % of the people probably don’t understand the processes inside the
computer. And that’s where Educational Simulators come in. They provide a virtual environment where
they can imitate the various processes happening inside a computer, giving us a better understanding.

Literature Survey:

SimpleScalar:
In 1994, a student of the University of Wisconsin developed this open-source tool for computer
architecture. SimpleScalar in itself is not a simulator, rather it is a collection of microarchitecture
simulators that emulate the microprocessors at different levels.

It is derived from MIPS-IV ISA. It is written using C language. Some of the microarchitecture simulators
available are:

 Sim safe (Checks for memory alignment and access for every memory operation)
 Sim profile (instruction interpreter and profiler)
 sim-bpred (branch predictor simulator)
 sim-out order (detailed microarchitectural simulator)

Performance visualization, debugging and hardware-software verification are some of the capabilities of
this simulator toolset. It is extensible, portable, and detailed. It can run on most NT and UNIX platforms.
The target can support multiple ISAs. But one major drawback of SImpleScalar is that the various toolset
might inhibit the other tool’s performance.

2.EduMIPS64:

The development of this architecture simulator was started in 2006 by a group of students from the
University of Catania. This was written to create a tool that can run programs in the MIPS64 dialect. This
started as a GNU GPL Java port of WinMIPS64 but evolved to run independently. It is designed to be
used to execute small programs that use the subset of the MIPS64 ISA implemented by the simulator,
allowing the user to see how instructions behave in the pipeline, how stalls are handled by the CPU, the
status of registers and memory and much more. It is both a simulator and a visual debugger.

3.CPU-OS simulator

A combination of CPU and OS simulators is a CPU-OS simulator. This simulator is open-source. The CPU
Simulator incorporates data and instruction cache simulators as well as a 5-stage CPU instruction
pipeline simulator. It supports multiple CPU simulations in shared memory or loosely coupled
architectures. The OS Simulator provides multithreaded processes and supports multiple CPU
simulations. It works with the CPU Simulator and manages virtual memory. This simulator also has
proper documentation and tutorials making this easy to use.

4. EasyCPU

This was mainly developed for students with an introductory level of knowledge. This has easy to use
interface. It has tools to edit, assemble, run and debug small programs. It focuses more on the
visualization of the execution process. EasyCPU has two modes of operation: Basic-Mode and Advanced-
Mode. Basic mode enables the novice student to learn the syntax and semantics of individual
instructions. The basic mode screen describes the main computer units: CPU, Memory Segments, and
elementary I/O.
5.RTLSim:

RTLSim is a UNIX program. This simulator simulates the datapath of simple non-pipelined MIPs like the
processor. The data path is made up of a 32-register register file, ALU, Memory interface, and other
registers to store values such as the program counter and current instruction. Three internal buses are
used to connect these components. It is possible to execute most MIPs instructions on the datapath.

CONCLUSION:

The variety of the simulators is the outcome of a wide range of needs reflecting different target
populations and subject matter orientations and a wide range of approaches to teaching and
visualization among the developers. Each simulator has its importance but the one I choose is the CPU-
OS simulator because of its easy-to-use interface and many capabilities.

REFERENCES:

Computer Architecture: How a Metaphor Transformed the Computing Age. It Began with an IBM
Industrial Designer named Eliot Noyes. | IEEE Computer Society

jeric_v4.doc (psu.edu)

EduMIPS64 Home Page

CPU Simulator – CPU-OS Simulator (teach-sim.com)

Tutorials – CPU-OS Simulator (teach-sim.com)