An instructional laboratory to support microprogramming

A microprogramming laboratory that supports a one-quarter computer architecture course is described. This laboratory includes an inexpensive 32-bit microprogrammable VLSI computer board with writable control store, an 8 MFLOP floating-point processor, advanced microcode debugging support, and a relocatable macro meta assembler. The laboratory described was developed and taught at Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Electrical Engineering. The cost of the microprogrammable hardware is comparable to that of a personal computer or other laboratory instruments such as oscilloscopes.< >