Usage

Emulator

The file called Astro8-Emulator serves multiple purposes.

• Emulates machine code just like the real hardware
• Compiles Armstrong into assembly
• Assembles assembly into machine code and stores it into a file called program_machine_code

To run your code, you may either simply start the program where you will be prompted to input your code - OR, you can provide a path as a command line argument. You can either type directly into the command line (don’t use any blank lines), or enter a path to your armstrong or assembly file and press enter twice. The type will be determined by the first line of the file. All Armstrong files should have #AS as the first line.

There is a second executable written in C# called ResourceGenerator. This is used to generate binary data from the character-set PNG file. Unless you want to change the font or add new characters, you don’t need to use this.

Logisim

Along with the emulator, you can look at the actual circuit design for the system and even run your programs in it.

1. Compile/Assemble your program using Astro8-Emulator. It will save the machine code to a file called program_machine_code automatically. This file is located directly next to the Astro8-Emulator executable.
2. Open the file called cpu-circuit.circ in the newest version of Logisim Evolution
3. Locate the RAM area, and find the one called MEMORY
4. Right-click on it, and click Load Image...
5. In the file view that just appeared, locate your compiled program file directly next to the Astro8-Emulator executable, and click Open
6. Press play, and it should run.

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