BZK.SAU: Implementing a hardware and software-based Computer Architecture simulator for educational purpose

The most ideal learning about a topic is to put the theoretical knowledge into practice. Computer Architecture and Organization course plays a significant role in the electronics engineering, computer engineering and similar disciplines. To convert practice the concepts handled in this course is not easy task. In this paper, we present a computer architecture simulator design named BZK.SAU. It has fifty-nine instructions that are commonly used in commercial microprocessors. Also, it has eleven registers and implements interrupt, stack and input-output operations. This simulator with memory of 64 KB uses sixteen bits data bus to communicate between registers, memory, and peripheral devices. This simulator is a useful tool for Computer Architecture and Organization course since all units of this simulator can be examined in detail. Many of the simulators in the literature have been designed using a software programming language. These simulators can help to enhance learning the concepts in Computer Architecture and Organization course. However, examining the internal structure of the units in these simulators is not possible. The simulator designed in this paper allows being able to analyze the internal structures since all units of this simulator was designed at logic gate level. Additionally, the Assembler and Compiler Programs was written for this Simulator in the Microsoft Visual Studio. NET platform. The students can watch the execution of the assembly code written using these programs. Also, they can watch step by step changes on its registers and other units by adjusting the clock speed in the simulator.