Designing Operating System Simulator: A Learning Tool

Based on teaching experience on operating systems subject course, there arises a need for developing a simulator that may facilitate students in learning operating systems subject as well as designing operating system and compiler. Primarily, the simulator consists of hardware computer system and kernels which both are presented in form of software. This means that hardware computer elements, such as central processing unit (CPU), memory, clock, and Input/Output (I/O) will be simulated as software. The simulator is developed into three phases. The first phase is developing simulated computer system. Second phase involves the development of kernels. And, the last phase is concerned with the development of operating system as a virtual machine (extended machine). This paper presents the result of the ongoing research of the first phase.