Technical requirements

You can find the programs used in this chapter on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Practical-Computer-Architecture-with-Python-and-ARM/tree/main/Chapter02.

The requirements to write a program in Python and run it are minimal. Python is an open source language and is freely available for the PC, Mac, and Linux platforms. All the information you need to set up a Python environment on your computer system can be found on the home page at https://www.python.org.

Remarkably, you do not need any other software to construct a computer simulator in Python. The Python package comes with Python’s Integrated Learning and Development Environment (IDLE) that lets you edit a Python program, save it, run it, and debug it.

There are alternatives to IDLE that let you create Python source files supported by Python platforms. These alternatives are generally more sophisticated and targeted at the professional developer. For the purposes of this chapter...