Universal Microprocessor Development Tool

Published in Computer Design April, 1980

This article describes my early microprocessor in-circuit emulation work, in which emulation memory rather the CPU itself is the focus. This shift in focus affords greater flexibility as well as cost reduction compared to a CPU-centric approach. As important as the emulation research itself are two topics that the article touches on but doesn't emphasize. One is the use of a PC for controlling an instrument, anticipating industry acceptance of this concept by 10 years. The other is what I called “data-driven programming“. My goal was to reduce code redundancy without increasing control flow, a significant object-oriented concept six years before C++ appeared internally at Bell Labs. In my software design for the BM-Hitachi 747 this concept reaches its full expression in the form of reusable declaratively configured program components.