Simulation of a data flow computer

A data flow computer architecture achieves hitgher computing speeds than the traditional von Newmann architecture by exploiting software parallelism at the instruction level in a highly parallel system of processing hardware. Data flow architectures executs- data flow graphs - directed graphs in which nodes represent instructions and interconnecting arcs define data flow oaths. One such data flow architecture, the Manchester Data Flow Computer has several rings which communicate via a common switch. This pacer describes the simulation of a single such ring. The code is written in Modula-2 using object oriented techniques. Partial cerformance figures obtained by the author's group are also presented. The paper concludes by suggesting several simulator enhancements.