A tool for analyzing the design and performance of a MASCOT ACP network: Introductory report

A tool to facilitate analysis of MASCOT systems is described. Both topological and behavior analysis of an ACP network can be performed using techniques of graph theory and event simulation. The simulation environment comprises a number of simulating tasks running under a general purpose operating system that supports pseudo parallelism between the tasks. A data base is created to hold the ACP diagram including node attributes. The topological input is derived from either a set of MASCOT construction commands or from a graphics terminal. Node attributes used in the simulation are created from a set of language statements describing in skeleton from the nature of MASCOT activities, IDAs and devices. Performance data is recorded using a data monitoring program. It is proposed that existing MASCOT machines be instrumented to interface to the simulation program and the data monitor. For use where this is not possible (and to make the tool more general purpose) a method of characterizing MASCOT machines from language statements and interpreting these characterizations is presented.