Computer Family Architecture Selection Committee Final Report. Volume IV. Architectural Research Facility; ISP Description, Simulations, Data Collection

This volume describes the process of automatically gathering architectural data from the benchmark programs. Formal descriptions of the candidate architectures were written and run under a simulator. Assembly listings of the benchmark programs were used to generate simulation command files containing absolute code. These command files were then used to initialize the simulated memory. The result of the simulated benchmarks were collected into a data base for post-processing. Automating the data collection process not only eliminated tedious and potentially error prone hand calculations, but also provided the means to gather dynamic program behavior information that would be almost impossible to calculate manually. (Author) See also Volume 5, AD-A049 484.