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    Introduction To Mips Assembly Language: Objective Theory

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    Tayyaba Hussain
    The document introduces MIPS assembly language. It discusses the MIPS architecture, registers, directives like .DATA and .TEXT to define memory segments, pseudo-instructions, and system I/O using syscall. It provides an example program template and describes common instructions like la, li, and syscall. It lists services for input/output and tasks the lab requires - printing a string and reading an integer from the user.

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    Introduction To Mips Assembly Language: Objective Theory

    Uploaded by

    Tayyaba Hussain
    67 views5 pages
    The document introduces MIPS assembly language. It discusses the MIPS architecture, registers, directives like .DATA and .TEXT to define memory segments, pseudo-instructions, and system I/O using syscall. It provides an example program template and describes common instructions like la, li, and syscall. It lists services for input/output and tasks the lab requires - printing a string and reading an integer from the user.

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    Lab2

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    The document introduces MIPS assembly language. It discusses the MIPS architecture, registers, directives like .DATA and .TEXT to define memory segments, pseudo-instructions, and system I/O using syscall. It provides an example program template and describes common instructions like la, li, and syscall. It lists services for input/output and tasks the lab requires - printing a string and reading an integer from the user.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    67 views5 pages

    Introduction To Mips Assembly Language: Objective Theory

    Uploaded by

    Tayyaba Hussain
    The document introduces MIPS assembly language. It discusses the MIPS architecture, registers, directives like .DATA and .TEXT to define memory segments, pseudo-instructions, and system I/O using syscall. It provides an example program template and describes common instructions like la, li, and syscall. It lists services for input/output and tasks the lab requires - printing a string and reading an integer from the user.

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    You are on page 1of 5

    LAB # 2

    INTRODUCTION TO MIPS ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE

    OBJECTIVE
    Introduction to MIPS Assembly language.

    THEORY
    The MIPS Architecture

    MIPS (originally an acronym for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) is a


    Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC). MIPS is a register based architecture, meaning the
    CPU uses registers to perform operations on. Registers are memory just like RAM, except
    registers are much smaller than RAM, and are much faster. In MIPS the CPU can only do
    operations on registers, and special immediate values. MIPS processors have 32 registers, but
    some of these are reserved. A fair number of registers however are available for your use.

    MIPS: registers

    The MIPS registers are arranged into a structure called a Register File. MIPS comes with 32
    general purpose registers named $0. . . $31. Registers also have symbolic names reflecting their
    conventional use:

    Introduction to MIPS Assembly Language


    Assembly Language Program Template

    # Title: Filename:
    # Author: Date:
    # Description:
    # Input:
    # Output:
    ################# Data segment #####################
    .data
    ...
    ...
    ################# Code segment #####################
    .text
    .global main
    main:
    ... # main program entry
    ...
    li $v0, 10 # Exit program
    syscall

    Assembly language instruction format

    Assembly language source code lines follow this format:

    [label:] [instruction/directive] [operands] [#comment]

    where [label] is an optional symbolic name; [instruction/directive] is either the mnemonic for an
    instruction or pseudo-instruction or directive; [operands] contains a combination of one, two, or
    three constants, memory references, and register references, as required by the particular
    instruction or directive; [#comment] is an optional comment.

    Labels

    Labels are nothing more than names used for referring to numbers and character strings or
    memory locations within a program. Labels let you give names to memory variables, values, and
    the locations of particular instructions.

    The label main is equivalent to the address of the first instruction in program1.
    li $v0, 5
    Directives

    Directives are required in every assembler program in order to define and control memory space
    usage. Directives only provide the framework for an assembler program, though; you also need
    lines in your source code that actually DO something, lines like
    Beq $v0, $0, end

    .DATA directive
     Defines the data segment of a program containing data
     The program's variables should be defined under this directive
     Assembler will allocate and initialize the storage of variables
     You should place your memory variables in this segment. For example,

    .DATA
    First: .space 100
    Second: .word 1, 2, 3
    Third: .byte 99, 2, 3

    .TEXT directive
     Defines the code segment of a program containing instructions

    .GLOBL directive
     Declares a symbol as global
     Global symbols can be referenced from other files
     We use this directive to declare main procedure of a program

    .ASCII Directive
     Allocates a sequence of bytes for an ASCII string

    .ASCIIZ Directive
     Same as .ASCII directive, but adds a NULL char at end of string
     Strings are null-terminated, as in the C programming language

    .SPACEn Directive
     Allocates space of n uninitialized bytes in the data segment

    Pseudo-instructions
    Pseudo-instructions give MIPS architecture set of assembly language instructions than those
    implemented by the hardware. For example, one of the frequent steps needed in programming
    is to copy the value of one register into another register. This actually can be solved easily by
    the instruction:
    add $t0, $zero, $t1

    However, it is more natural to use the pseudo-instruction

    move $t0, $t1.

    The assembler converts this pseudo-instruction into the machine language equivalent of the
    prior instruction.

    MIPS-INSTRUCTIONS

    Instructions Description
    la Rdest, var Load Address. Loads the address of var into Rdest.
    li Rdest, imm Load Immediate. Loads the immediate value imm into
    Rdest.

    SYSTEM I/O (INPUT/OUTPUT)

     Programs do input/output through system calls


     MIPS provides a special syscall instruction
     To obtain services from the operating system
     Many services are provided in the MARS simulators
     There are10 different services provided.
     Using the syscall system services
     Load the service number in register $v0
     Load argument values, if any, in registers $a0, $a1, etc.
     Issue the syscall instruction
     Retrieve return values, if any, from result registers

    Service Code in $v0 Argument(s) Result(s)


    Print integer 1 $a0 = number to be printed
    Print String 4 $a0 = address of string in
    Memory
    Read Integer 5 Number returned in $v0.
    Read String 8 $a0= address of input buffer
    In memory.
    $a1 = length of buffer (n)
    Exit 10
    Print Char 11 $a0 = character to print
    Read Char 12 $v0 = character read

    LAB TASK
    1. Write an assembly program that Print a string of characters
    2. Write a program to prompt and read an integer from a user

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