Contemporary Concepts of Microprogramming and Emulation
ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR)
Communications of the ACM
Instruction tracing via microprogramming
MICRO 7 Conference record of the 7th annual workshop on Microprogramming
The development of user microprogramming: A survey and status report
MICRO 7 Conference record of the 7th annual workshop on Microprogramming
An interactive debugger for software and firmware
MICRO 6 Conference record of the 6th annual workshop on Microprogramming
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Diagnostic Emulation is the application of microprogramming to the emulation of an operational computer to support software development and verification for that computer. A conventional technique, Interpretive Computer Simulation (ICS), has been used for many years in support of such software development and verification efforts. The ICS method is becoming less cost effective. For the development of attitude control software for NASA's High Energy Astronomical Observatory (HEAO) diagnostic emulation was considered as an alternative. This paper describes the motivation for using an ICS or diagnostic emulator to validate command and control software, the potential advantages of microprogramming, and the analysis which led to the development of the HEAO Diagnostic Emulator rather than the use of conventional techniques. Also discussed are the emulator implementation tradeoff analysis, the resulting program design, and the interface between the microprogram and the assembly language modules. The results to date are described, including the capability, speed, and reliability of the program and initial user response.