SIMAC is the abbreviation of Simple Model Automatic Computer. It simulates a (really) simple serial 8 bit computer. Yes, it is a very, very slow computer and you can not write a sophisticated program for it, but it shows how a computer works in an easy and interactive way.

SIMAC has everything to show how a computer works. It has a program editor, an assembler, a program tracer, and a simulator. You may simply write your own program using the editor, or load a sample program, translate it into SIMAC's machine language using the assembler, and then use the program tracer or the simulator to see what is happenning in the computer while the program is being executed.

SIMAC is very simple. The SIMAC diagram in the simulator is all you need to build an actual one. All logics from one gate to others were propagated automatically, and you can see how a computer uses only "1" and "0" signals to perform useful tasks.

Because of its simplicity, SIMAC cannot be used to represent nowadays 32-bit or 64-bit parallel computers. But I hope you will understand how they work in general after you tried using SIMAC.

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