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This new online version of the Educational CPU Visual Simulator allows users to visualize with detailed animations the execution of assembly language code. Its main goal is to support novices in understanding the behaviour of the key components of a CPU, focusing on how code written in high-level languages is actually executed on the hardware of a computer.

It supports a simplified but representative assembly language of 16 (Data Transfer, Control Flow, Arithmetic-Logic) instructions, with immediate and direct addressing modalities. Instructions and numeric data can be inserted and edited directly in RAM. It is possible to define “labels” to be used as parameters in jump instructions, or as variable identifiers. The speed and level of detais of the animations can be controlled by the users. At any time, it is possible to switch between symbolic and binary representations.

It was successfully evaluated in Colorado: Cortinovis, R., & Rajan, R. Evaluating and improving the Educational CPU Visual Simulator: a sustainable Open Pedagogy approach, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG).

Additional information available in: Cortinovis, R. (2021). An educational CPU Visual Simulator, Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Workshop of the Psychology of Programming Interest Group (PPIG).

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