A spreadsheet educational tool for microprocessor system

Abstract

This article presents a spreadsheet simulation of a user-defined central processing unit. The tool allows users to emulate their own instructions and visualize the graphical animation of the operation involved. The simulation environment, which is ideal for educational use, is characterized by its low cost, flexibility, and simplicity.

Microprocessor Simulation and Program Assembling Using Spreadsheets

“…Spreadsheets have been used to solve some electrical engineering problems [1,2], and to simulate many devices and systems such as logic networks [4][5][6][7], control systems [8][9][10], analog computers [11], and some basic operations of microprocessor systems [12,13].…”

“…Formulas are used to calculate the outputs as functions of the data and control inputs. A different approach was also used in [13] to simulate a simple ALU with limited memory, registers, and instruction sets.…”