Simulating von-Neumann machines in an object oriented environment

The design and implementation of VSM, (virtual stack machine) a programming system for generating and interpreting code for von-Neumann machines, is described. C++ was chosen as implementation language because it permits the use of the built-in operators of a high level language for user defined new data types. Furthermore it supports the object oriented way of programming, e.g. the principles of abstract data types and polymorphism. Examples of programs generating code and simulating a machine are presented in order to show the efficiency of using C++ combined with a well designed class library. The examples are related to the VLSI netlist logic design rule check. Also, some techniques are demonstrated to take advantage of inheritance, virtual functions and operator overloading that go beyond the scope of the current C++ language definition