SIMULATORS

Simulators are programs that assemble and execute the instruction set (or some subset thereof) of a target architecture that is not the same as the architecture of the machine running the simulator. This course uses simulators to simplify the task of learning an assembler language, and to make it possible to understand important features of all architectures, such as why some operations inherently take longer than others. The simulators described below have been installed on the computers in the Microcomputer Laboratory in McDermott Library, and can be downloaded from the EE 2310 Web page.

Software for the MIPS Instruction Set Architecture

SPIM/SAL and SPIM are simulators for the MIPS R2000-R3000 instruction set architecture.

SPIM is an assembler/debugger for the MIPS R2000 assembly language. It was written by Jim Larus of the University of Wisconsin.
SAL (Simple Abstract Language) is simpler than SPIM because it allows arithmetic and logical instructions that reference memory locations instead of registers. (In fact, SAL is quite similar to Pascal.) A book that uses and explains SAL extensively is "A Programmer's View of Computer Architecture", by James Goodman and Karen Miller.

The Mac version of SPIM recognizes both SPIM and SAL instructions. Use StuffIt Expander (which comes with Netscape) to deBinHex and decompress the file. The result will be a folder containing the SPIM application, source code, and various examples.

There are two PC versions of SPIM:

The Windows 95/98 version of SPIM (without SAL). This is the recommended version; it recognizes only SPIM instructions. Every program's text (instructions) must start with the lines
```
	        .globl main
	        main:
	        
```
The Windows 95 version of SPIM/SAL (self-extracting archive). This version also recognizes SAL instructions. Every program's text (instructions) must start with the line
```
	        __start:
	        
```

The current UNIX version of SPIM is 6.2. UNIX SPIM does not recognize SAL instructions. Every program's text (instructions) must start with the lines

	        .globl main
	        main:

Software for Other Instruction Set Architectures

XMPSIM (CRAY X-MP architecture)

Instruction summaries

SAL instructions (text file)

SPIM instructions (text file)

James Larus's article on SPIM

Detailed summary of SPIM instructions, including bug fixes

The XMPSIM instruction set is a subset of the CRAY X-MP instruction set. For a full account of the CRAY X-MP instruction set architecture, see S. Robbins and K. Robbins, The Cray X-MP: A Case Study in Pipelined Architecture and Vector processing, Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Computer Science #374, 1989.

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