MARS: an education-oriented MIPS assembly language simulator

ABSTRACT

We describe the implementation of "MARS," a GUI, Java-based simulator for the MIPS assembly language. MIPS, the computer architecture underlying the simulated assembly language, is widely used in industry and is the basis of the popular textbook Computer Organization and Design [6], used at over 400 universities. The MARS simulator has been implemented with characteristics that are especially useful to undergraduate computer science students and their instructors.

References

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Index Terms

• Computer systems organization

  • Architectures

    • Parallel architectures

      • Very long instruction word

    • Serial architectures

      • Complex instruction set computing

      • Reduced instruction set computing

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

  • Electronic design automation

    • Modeling and parameter extraction