Introduction to MIPS Assembly Language Programming (Introduction to MIPS Assembly Language Programming)
Introduction to MIPS Assembly Language Programming
About the Book
Given the effort of writing a book, the first question an author has to answer is “why bother?” The answer to that question is what frames the book, and what I will describe here.
Why was this book written? First because I do not believe that there is any book currently available which meets the needs I had for a text book. The first is that the can be obtained for a minimal price, or can even be downloaded for free at a number of sites on the web. I am very tired of asking students to pay over $100 per book for classes. I personally have been blessed in so many ways in this world, and I have reached a point in my career where I can take the time to produce this text as a small pay back for all I have been given. I hope that this example will help students who use the book to order their priorities as they go through life, to seek a good outside of personal monetary gain.
I realize that this text could very much use a good editing, unless I can find someone willing to donate the time to do so, I think the basic information in the book is well enough organized to make it useful, and well worth the cost of a free download.
The second reason I wrote this book is that I could not find an assembly programming book that met the need I had in teaching assembly programming. I believe that learning assembly programming is important to every Computer Science student because the principals in assembly affect how high level languages and programs in those languages are implemented. I have purposefully structured the topics in this text to illustrate how concepts such as memory organization (static, heap, and stack) affect variable allocation in high level languages. The chapter on program control is intended to make the student aware of structured programming, which is the basis for control structures in all modern high level languages. Even arrays make more sense in a high level language once one understands how they are implemented, and why. This text is intended to be more than a book about assembly language programming, but to extend assembly language into the principals on which the higher level languages are built.
Finally writing a book is the best way to organize my own thoughts. Much of the material in this text existed for years as a jumble in my own mind. Producing slides and programs for class helped clarify the concepts, but it was when I had to provide a larger organization of the ideas that many of them finally gelled for me. Forcing yourself to explain a concept, particularly in the brutal detail of writing it out, is the best way to organize and learn things.
There are other details about this book that need to be mentioned. Because this book is electronic, it can be released in phases. This text should be looked at in the same way as a beta software release. I know there are mistakes, but I have the ability to correct them and rerelease the text. So comments are welcome.
There is a separate set of appendices which should be available by mid-summer, 2015. I will update this forward with the URL address of those appendices once they are posted. If anyone is in real need of those appendices, I will send them in their current, incomplete, format. I can be contacted at ckann(at)gettysburg.edu.
I will also release an answer guide when it is completed, hopefully in the same mid-summer 2015 time frame. To request an answer guide will require a request from a professor or lecturer at a school, and that the requestor be listed on the department web site for that school. Requests for this document can be made to me at the same address as for the appendices.
I hope the readers find this text useful. I hope it is at least worth the price...
About the Author
Table of Contents
Contents
Chapter 1. 1 Binary Numbers. 13
Chapter 1.1. 1 Values for Binary Numbers. 13
Chapter 1.1. 2 Binary Whole Numbers. 14
Chapter 1. 2 Converting Binary, Decimal, and Hex Numbers. 16
Chapter 1.2. 1 Converting Binary to Decimal 16
Chapter 1.2. 2 Converting Decimal to Binary using Binary Powers. 16
Chapter 1.2. 3 Converting Decimal to Binary using Division. 17
Chapter 1.2. 4 Converting between binary and hexadecimal 18
Chapter 1. 3 Character Representation. 19
Chapter 1. 4 Adding Binary Whole Numbers. 21
Chapter 1. 5 Integer Numbers (2's Complement) 21
Chapter 1.5. 1 What is an Integer 21
Chapter 1.5. 2 2's complement operation and 2's complement format 22
Chapter 1.5. 3 The 2's Complement Operation. 22
Chapter 1.5. 4 The 2's Complement (or Integer) Type. 23
Chapter 1. 6 Integer Arithmetic. 24
Chapter 1.6. 1 Integer Addition. 24
Chapter 1.6. 2 Overflow of Integer Addition. 25
Chapter 1.6. 3 Integer multiplication using bit shift operations. 26
Chapter 1.6. 4 Integer division using bit shift operations. 27
Chapter 1. 7 Boolean Logical and Bitwise Operators. 28
Chapter 1.7. 1 Boolean Operators. 28
Chapter 1.7. 2 Logical and Bitwise Boolean Operators. 29
Chapter 2 First Programs in MIPS assembly. 34
Chapter 2. 1 The MARS IDE.. 34
Chapter 2. 2 MIPS and memory. 35
Chapter 2.2. 1 Types of memory. 36
Chapter 2.2. 2 Overview of a MIPS CPU.. 36
Chapter 2.2. 4 Types of memory. 40
Chapter 2. 3 First program in MIPS assembly. 41
Chapter 2.3. 1 Program 2-1 Commentary. 43
Chapter 2. 4 Program to prompt and read an integer from a user 45
Chapter 2.4. 1 Program 2-2 Commentary. 46
Chapter 2. 5 Program to prompt and read a string from a user 46
Chapter 2.5. 1 Program 2-3 Commentary. 47
Chapter 2. 7 Java program for call by value and reference. 51
Chapter 3 MIPS arithmetic and Logical Operators. 53
Chapter 3. 1 3-Address machines. 53
Chapter 3. 2 Addition in MIPS assembly. 55
Chapter 3.2. 1 Addition operators. 55
Chapter 3.2. 2 Addition Examples. 56
Chapter 3.2. 3 Introduction to pseudo code. 58
Chapter 3.2. 4 Assembly language addition program.. 59
Chapter 3.2. 5 Assembly language addition program commentary. 60
Chapter 3. 3 Subtraction in MIPS assembly. 61
Chapter 3. 4 Multiplication in MIPS assembly. 62
Chapter 3. 5 Division in MIPS Assembly. 64
Chapter 3.5. 1 Remainder operator, even/odd number checker 66
Chapter 3.5. 2 Remainder operator, even/odd number checker 66
Chapter 3. 6 Solving arithmetic expressions in MIPS assembly. 67
Chapter 3. 7 Division and accuracy of an equation. 68
Chapter 3. 8 Logical operators. 69
Chapter 3. 9 Using logical operators. 72
Chapter 3.9. 1 Storing immediate values in registers. 72
Chapter 3.9. 2 Converting a character from upper case to lower case. 72
Chapter 3.9. 3 Reversible operations with XOR.. 73
Chapter 3. 10 Shift Operations. 74
Chapter 3.10. 1 Program illustrating shift operations. 77
Chapter 4 Translating Assembly Language into Machine Code. 82
Chapter 4. 1 Instruction formats. 82
Chapter 4. 2 Machine code for the add instruction. 84
Chapter 4. 3 Machine code for the sub instruction. 85
Chapter 4. 4 Machine code for the addi instruction. 85
Chapter 4. 5 Machine code for the sll instruction. 86
Chapter 5 Simple MIPS subprograms. 89
Chapter 5. 1 Exit Subprogram.. 89
Chapter 5.1. 1 Commentary on Exit subprogram.. 90
Chapter 5. 2 PrintNewLine subprogram.. 91
Chapter 5.2. 1 Commentary on Exit subprogram.. 92
Chapter 5. 3 The Program Counter ($pc) register and calling a subprogram.. 93
Chapter 5. 4 Returning from a subprogram and the $ra register 96
Chapter 5. 5 Input parameter with PrintString subprogram.. 97
Chapter 5. 6 Multiple input parameters with PrintInt subprogram.. 99
Chapter 5. 7 Return values with PromptInt subprogram.. 101
Chapter 5. 8 Create a utils.asm file. 103
Chapter 5. 9 Final program to prompt, read, and print an integer 105
Chapter 6 MIPS memory - the data segment 109
Chapter 6. 1 Flat memory model 109
Chapter 6. 3 Accessing memory. 113
Chapter 6. 4 Methods of accessing memory. 114
Chapter 6.4. 1 Addressing by label 115
Chapter 6.4. 2 Register direct access. 116
Chapter 6.4. 3 Register indirect access. 117
Chapter 6.4. 4 Register offset access. 118
Chapter 7 Assembly language program control structures. 122
Chapter 7. 1 Use of goto statements. 123
Chapter 7. 2 Simple if statements. 124
Chapter 7.2. 1 Simple if statements in pseudo code. 124
Chapter 7.2. 2 Simple if statement translated to assembly. 124
Chapter 7.2. 3 Simple if statement with complex logical conditions. 125
Chapter 7. 3 if-else statements. 126
Chapter 7. 4 if-elseif-else statements. 128
Chapter 7.5. 1 Sentinel control loop. 131
Chapter 7.5. 2 Counter control loop. 132
Chapter 7. 6 Nested code blocks. 134
Chapter 7. 7 A full assembly language program.. 136
Chapter 7. 8 How to calculate branch amounts in machine code. 140
Chapter 7.8. 1 Instruction Addresses. 140
Chapter 7.8. 2 Value in the $pc register 141
Chapter 7.8. 3 How the word boundary effects branching. 142
Chapter 7.8. 4 Translating branch instructions to machine code. 143
Chapter 7.8. 5 PC relative addressing. 145
Chapter 8 Reentrant Subprograms. 149
Chapter 8.1. 1 Stack data structure: definition. 149
Chapter 8.1. 2 Another stack implementation. 151
Chapter 8. 2 The program stack. 152
Chapter 8.2. 1 The non-reentrant subprogram problem.. 152
Chapter 8.2. 2 Making subprograms re-entrant 155
Chapter 8.3. 1 Recursive multiply in a HLL.. 158
Chapter 9. 1 Heap dynamic memory. 161
Chapter 9.1. 1 What is heap memory. 161
Chapter 9.1. 2 Allocating heap memory example – PromptString subprogram.. 162
Chapter 9.1. 3 Commentary on PromptString Subprogram.. 163
Chapter 9. 2 Array Definition and creation in Assembly. 164
Chapter 9.2. 1 Allocating arrays in memory. 166
Chapter 9. 3 Printing an Array. 167
Chapter 9.3. 1 Bubble Sort in MIPS assembly. 170
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