Why was tickit created?

Tickit is an event-driven multi-device simulation framework. The need for such a framework came out of the desire to simulate hardware triggered scans. For such scans, multiple system components are needed to be able to communicate with one another and have linked behaviour triggered by events.

Tickit allows this by simulating device level logic, and allows the devices to pass values to each other by the means of device Inputs and Outputs. This flow of information can be facilitated in memory, or over a message brokering service for devices distributed across different processes or machines.

The tickit framework was inspired by lewis, a cycle driven simulation framework by ESS, however differs in key ways to offer different functionality.

multi-device

Lewis only supports running a single device simulation in isolation. Tickit is designed to allow users to model complex interactions between multiple devices.

event-based

Being event based each device in the system only updates when relevant. A device update can be triggered by interrupts caused by changes from other linked devices or adapters, or by a devices own scheduled callbacks.

To re-create a cycle driven system a device can be created to request infinite callbacks at regular intervals which can then go on to update any downstream device.

Bus based communication

Tickit uses message buses as a basis for the communication between its devices. This was chosen in an attempt to simplify communication and to try and produce a less coupled system than is achievable with RPC.