Report Number: CSL-TR-77-150
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Research in the Digital Systems Laboratory: August 1976-July 1977
Author: Staff
Date: July 1977
Abstract: This report summarizes the research carried out in the Digital Systems Laboratory at Stanford University during the period from August 1976 through July 1977. Research investigations were concentrated in the following areas: Computer Reliability and Testing, including detection of intermittent failures, testing for sequential circuits, self-checking linear feedback shift registers, simulation analysis of high-reliability systems, effects of failures on gracefully degradable systems, fault diagnosis in digital systems, and software reliability; Critical Fault-Pattern Determination; Computer Architecture, including trace facility, memory interleaving, and monitors for signal activity; Organization of Computer Systems, including an emulation research laboratory, emulators, and memory performance; Feasibility of Real-Time Emulation, including directly executable languages; Distributed Date Processing for Ballistic Missile Defense; Description Languages and Design for General-Purpose Computer Architectures, including evaluation of existing hardware description languages, development of a structural description language, applications of the structural design language, bounds for maximal parallelism, and parallel information processing in bilogical systems; Computer Networks, including broadcast protocols in packet-switched computer networks and the optimal placement of dynamic-recovery checkpoints in recoverable computer systems; Design and Verification of Reliable Software including specifications and proofs for abstract data types in concurrent programs, specification and verification of monitors, and operating system design; Design Automation, including a language for describing the structure of digital systems, the SPRINT printed-circuit design system, computer-aided layout of large-scale integrated circuits, and an interactive system for design capture; Database, including studies in distributed processing and problem solving, a database maintenance system, and the implementation of database in medicine; and Digital Incremental Computers. Renamed Computer Systems Laboratory in 1978.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/77/150/CSL-TR-77-150.pdf