Experiment Procedure

1. Select Instruction Sequence
   Begin by choosing a sequence of instructions using the provided input panel. You may either use one of the predefined examples or enter a custom instruction set to simulate.

2. Start the Simulation
   Once the instruction sequence is selected, start the simulation. The interface will display three key tables:

   • Instruction Status Table: Shows the progress of each instruction through the pipeline stages.
   • Functional Unit Status Table: Indicates the state and occupancy of each functional unit, including operand readiness.
   • Register Status Table: Displays which functional unit, if any, is writing to each register.

3. Advance Instructions Manually
   During the simulation, students must manually advance instructions through the four scoreboarding stages by clicking the appropriate cells in the Instruction Status Table:

   • Issue
   • Read Operands
   • Execution Complete
   • Write Result

   The student must analyze the current scoreboard state to determine if an instruction is eligible to move to the next stage. This encourages active reasoning about dependencies and hazards.

4. Feedback and Hints
   If a student clicks on a stage prematurely—e.g., trying to read operands before they are available or write results when a WAR hazard exists—the simulator will block the action and display a hint explaining the reason. This helps reinforce the rules of scoreboarding through guided learning.

5. Observe and Analyze
   Continue interacting with the simulation, observing how data hazards are tracked and resolved dynamically. Watch how the functional and register status tables evolve as instructions progress.

6. Complete the Simulation
   Proceed until all instructions have successfully completed the "Write Result" stage. Reflect on how scoreboarding enabled out-of-order execution while maintaining program correctness.