includes a conventional hub providing 10baset connections alternatively computer network 24 can also include a switch which selectively transmits data packet based on destination addresses use of a switch can reduce packet traffic at a particular connection and thus reduce the buffer requirements at the connected devices e g host computer 30 providing a switch at host computer 30 39 s connection to computer network 24 also simplifies the molasses program 50 running on host computer 30 in this configuration emulator 12 39 s connection to workstation 10 over internal bus 21 allows examination of signals in logic circuits 18 and 27 for debugging purpose 0023 fig3 is a block diagram 300 showing the functions performed by molasses program 50 in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention molasses program 50 includes a graphical user interface illustrated in fig4 by mainscreen 80 as shown in fig4 mainscreen 80 allows the user to specify an ethernet nic act 82 and a port address for bidirectional interface 22 connected to emulator 12 act 84 status line 92 displays continuously information about packets being processed by molasses program 50 the amount of information to be shown on status line 92 can be selected using verbose mode option 86 and silent mode option 88 the user can also specify a log file act 90 to record information such as the value of each byte in each data packet a count or the nature of errors that occur or comments that the user may wish to add the log file can be used for future reference and debugging purposes referring back to fig3 molasses.