Page-oriented optical memories combine high capacity with massive data-transfer rates and could provide the next generation of secondary storage systems. Several technological barriers need to be overcome before these memories become commercial products. One is the need for efficient interfaces to electronic computers. To assist in the analysis of all issues pertaining to such an interface, we have developed the optical storage interactive simulator (oasis), an interactive software tool. oasis can simulate data-encoding schemes, noise sources present in a particular memory system, and data-recovery mechanisms. Bit-error rates and other useful statistics can also be measured. The user has the option of studying the effects of individual error sources to the system output or of applying several of them in any order dictated by the system architecture. This multifaceted analysis will assist the user in evaluating the effectiveness of a particular error-correcting code and choosing the right one for the system.