<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation:  ASA-EMulatR Reference Guide > Introduction > Architecture Overview > Chapter 4 - Functional Execution Domains ("Boxes) > 4.1 Purpose of This Chapter

This chapter defines the Functional Execution Domains, commonly referred to as "Boxes", used throughout the EMulatR Alpha AXP emulator. These Boxes model the architectural and microarchitectural partitioning of responsibilities found in real Alpha AXP processors while preserving a clean, maintainable software design.

 

This chapter explains:

•What each Box is responsible for

•What each Box is explicitly not responsible for

•How Boxes interact with the pipeline and instruction grains

•Why the emulator routes execution through Boxes rather than monolithic handlers

•The cross-Box interaction rules that prevent architectural drift

 

This chapter is architectural, not instructional. Individual instruction behavior is documented in the grains and in the GrainMaster.tsv opcode table (616 entries). Implementation-level Box code detail is covered in Chapter 14 – Execution Domains (“Boxes”).

 

See Also: Chapter 3 - Pipeline Architecture; Chapter 14 – Execution Domains (“Boxes”).