MIPS Assembly Language
Programming CS50 Discussion
and Project Book Daniel J.
Ellard September
MIPS Assembly Language Programming
CS50 Discussion and Project Book
Daniel J. Ellard
September, 1994
Contents
1 Data Representation 1
1.1 Representing Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1 Unsigned Binary Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1.1.1 Conversion of Binary to Decimal . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1.2 Conversion of Decimal to Binary . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.1.3 Addition of Unsigned Binary Numbers . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.2 Signed Binary Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.1.2.1 Addition and Subtraction of Signed Binary Numbers 8
1.1.2.2 Shifting Signed Binary Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.1.2.3 Hexadecimal Notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.2 Representing Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3 Representing Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4 Memory Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.1 Units of Memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4.1.1 Historical Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4.2 Addresses and Pointers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4.3 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.5 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.5.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 MIPS Tutorial 17
2.1 What is Assembly Language? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.2 Getting Started: add.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.1 Commenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.2 Finding the Right Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
i
ii CONTENTS
2.2.3 Completing the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.3.1 Labels and main . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.3.2 Syscalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3 Using SPIM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4 Using syscall: add2.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.1 Reading and Printing Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.5 Strings: the hello Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
2.6 Conditional Execution: the larger Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.7 Looping: the multiples Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.8 Loads: the palindrome.asm Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.9 The atoi Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.9.1 atoi-1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
2.9.2 atoi-2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.9.3 atoi-3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.9.4 atoi-4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
2.10 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.10.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.10.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.10.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Advanced MIPS Tutorial 43
3.1 Function Environments and Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1.1 Computing Fibonacci Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.1.1 Using Saved Registers: fib-s.asm . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.1.2 Using Temporary Registers: fib-t.asm . . . . . . . 47
3.1.1.3 Optimization: fib-o.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.2 Structures and sbrk: the treesort Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.2.1 Representing Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.2 The sbrk syscall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
CONTENTS iii
4 The MIPS R2000 Instruction Set 55
4.1 A Brief History of RISC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2 MIPS Instruction Set Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.3 The MIPS Register Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4 The MIPS Instruction Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.4.1 Arithmetic Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.4.2 Comparison Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.4.3 Branch and Jump Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.4.3.1 Branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.4.3.2 Jump . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.4.4 Load, Store, and Data Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.4.4.1 Load . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.4.4.2 Store . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.4.4.3 Data Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.4.5 Exception Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.5 The SPIM Assembler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.5.1 Segment and Linker Directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.5.2 Data Directives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6 The SPIM Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.6.1 SPIM syscalls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.7 The Native MIPS Instruction Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.8 Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.8.1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5 MIPS Assembly Code Examples 69
5.1 add2.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2 hello.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.3 multiples.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.4 palindrome.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.5 atoi-1.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.6 atoi-4.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.7 printf.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.8 fib-o.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
5.9 treesort.asm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
iv CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Data Representation
by Daniel J. Ellard
In order to understand how a computer is able to manipulate data and perform
computations, you must first understand how data is represented by a computer.
At the lowest level, the indivisible unit of data in a computer is a bit. A bit
represents a single binary value, which may be either 1 or 0. In different contexts, a
bit value of 1 and 0 may also be referred to as “true” and “false”, “yes” and “no”,
“high” and “low”, “set” and “not set”, or “on” and “off”.
The decision to use binary values, rather than something larger (such as decimal
values) was not purely arbitrary– it is due in a large part to the relative simplicity of
building electronic devices that can manipulate binary values.
1.1 Representing Integers
1.1.1 Unsigned Binary Numbers
While the idea of a number system with only two values may seem odd, it is actually
very similar to the decimal system we are all familiar with, except that each digit is a
bit containing a 0 or 1 rather than a number from 0 to 9. (The word “bit” itself is a
contraction of the words “binary digit”) For example, figure 1.1 shows several binary
numbers, and the equivalent decimal numbers.
In general, the binary representation of 2k has a 1 in binary digit k (counting from
the right, starting at 0) and a 0 in every other digit. (For notational convenience, the
1
2 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
Figure 1.1: Binary and Decimal Numbers
Binary Decimal
0 = 0
1 = 1
10 = 2
11 = 3
100 = 4
101 = 5
110 = 6
.
. .
. .
.
. . .
11111111 = 255
ith bit of a binary number A will be denoted as Ai .)
The binary representation of a number that is not a power of 2 has the bits set
corresponding to the powers of two that sum to the number: for example, the decimal
number 6 can be expressed in terms of powers of 2 as 1 × 22 + 1 × 21 + 0 × 20 , so
it is written in binary as 110.
An eight-digit binary number is commonly called a byte. In this text, binary
numbers will usually be written as bytes (i.e. as strings of eight binary digits). For
example, the binary number 101 would usually be written as 00000101– a 101 padded
on the left with five zeros, for a total of eight digits.
Whenever there is any possibility of ambiguity between decimal and binary no-
tation, the base of the number system (which is 2 for binary, and 10 for decimal) is
appended to the number as a subscript. Therefore, 1012 will always be interpreted
as the binary representation for five, and never the decimal representation of one
hundred and one (which would be written as 10110 ).
1.1.1.1 Conversion of Binary to Decimal
To convert an unsigned binary number to a decimal number, add up the decimal
values of the powers of 2 corresponding to bits which are set to 1 in the binary
number. Algorithm 1.1 shows a method to do this. Some examples of conversions
from binary to decimal are given in figure 1.2.
Since there are 2n unique sequences of n bits, if all the possible bit sequences of
1.1. REPRESENTING INTEGERS 3
Algorithm 1.1 To convert a binary number to decimal.
• Let X be a binary number, n digits in length, composed of bits Xn−1 · · · X0 .
• Let D be a decimal number.
• Let i be a counter.
1. Let D = 0.
2. Let i = 0.
3. While i < n do:
• If Xi == 1 (i.e. if bit i in X is 1), then set D = (D + 2i ).
• Set i = (i + 1).
Figure 1.2: Examples of Conversion from Binary to Decimal
Binary Decimal
00000000 = 0 = 0 = 0
00000101 = 22 + 20 = 4+1 = 5
00000110 = 22 + 21 = 4+2 = 6
00101101 = 25 + 23 + 22 + 20 = 32 + 8 + 4 + 1 = 45
10110000 = 27 + 25 + 24 = 128 + 32 + 16 = 176
4 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
length n are used, starting from zero, the largest number will be 2n − 1.
1.1.1.2 Conversion of Decimal to Binary
An algorithm for converting a decimal number to binary notation is given in algo-
rithm 1.2.
Algorithm 1.2 To convert a positive decimal number to binary.
• Let X be an unsigned binary number, n digits in length.
• Let D be a positive decimal number, no larger than 2n − 1.
• Let i be a counter.
1. Let X = 0 (set all bits in X to 0).
2. Let i = (n − 1).
3. While i ≥ 0 do:
(a) If D ≥ 2i , then
• Set Xi = 1 (i.e. set bit i of X to 1).
• Set D = (D − 2i ).
(b) Set i = (i − 1).
1.1.1.3 Addition of Unsigned Binary Numbers
Addition of binary numbers can be done in exactly the same way as addition of
decimal numbers, except that all of the operations are done in binary (base 2) rather
than decimal (base 10). Algorithm 1.3 gives a method which can be used to perform
binary addition.
When algorithm 1.3 terminates, if c is not 0, then an overflow has occurred– the
resulting number is simply too large to be represented by an n-bit unsigned binary
number.
1.1. REPRESENTING INTEGERS 5
Algorithm 1.3 Addition of binary numbers (unsigned).
• Let A and B be a pair of n-bit binary numbers.
• Let X be a binary number which will hold the sum of A and B.
• Let c and c be carry bits.
ˆ
• Let i be a counter.
• Let s be an integer.
1. Let c = 0.
2. Let i = 0.
3. While i < n do:
(a) Set s = Ai + Bi + c.
(b) Set Xi and c according to the following rules:
ˆ
• If s == 0, then Xi =0 and c = 0.
ˆ
• If s == 1, then Xi =1 and c = 0.
ˆ
• If s == 2, then Xi =0 and c = 1.
ˆ
• If s == 3, then Xi =1 and c = 1.
ˆ
(c) Set c = c.
ˆ
(d) Set i = (i + 1).
6 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
1.1.2 Signed Binary Numbers
The major drawback with the representation that we’ve used for unsigned binary
numbers is that it doesn’t include a way to represent negative numbers.
There are a number of ways to extend the unsigned representation to include
negative numbers. One of the easiest is to add an additional bit to each number
that is used to represent the sign of the number– if this bit is 1, then the number is
negative, otherwise the number is positive (or vice versa). This is analogous to the
way that we write negative numbers in decimal– if the first symbol in the number is
a negative sign, then the number is negative, otherwise the number is positive.
Unfortunately, when we try to adapt the algorithm for addition to work properly
with this representation, this apparently simple method turns out to cause some
trouble. Instead of simply adding the numbers together as we do with unsigned
numbers, we now need to consider whether the numbers being added are positive or
negative. If one number is positive and the other negative, then we actually need to
do subtraction instead of addition, so we’ll need to find an algorithm for subtraction.
Furthermore, once we’ve done the subtraction, we need to compare the the unsigned
magnitudes of the numbers to determine whether the result is positive or negative.
Luckily, there is a representation that allows us to represent negative numbers in
such a way that addition (or subtraction) can be done easily, using algorithms very
similar to the ones that we already have. The representation that we will use is called
two’s complement notation.
To introduce two’s complement, we’ll start by defining, in algorithm 1.4, the
algorithm that is used to compute the negation of a two’s complement number.
Algorithm 1.4 Negation of a two’s complement number.
1. Let x = the logical complement of x.
¯
The logical complement (also called the one’s complement) is formed by flipping
all the bits in the number, changing all of the 1 bits to 0, and vice versa.
2. Let X = x + 1.
¯
If this addition overflows, then the overflow bit is discarded.
By the definition of two’s complement, X ≡ −x.
1.1. REPRESENTING INTEGERS 7
Figure 1.3 shows the process of negating several numbers. Note that the negation
of zero is zero.
Figure 1.3: Examples of Negation Using Two’s Complement
00000110 = 6
1’s complement 11111001
Add 1 11111010 = -6
11111010 = -6
1’s complement 00000101
Add 1 00000110 = 6
00000000 = 0
1’s complement 11111111
Add 1 00000000 = 0
This representation has several useful properties:
• The leftmost (most significant) bit also serves as a sign bit; if 1, then the number
is negative, if 0, then the number is positive or zero.
• The rightmost (least significant) bit of a number always determines whether or
not the number is odd or even– if bit 0 is 0, then the number is even, otherwise
the number is odd.
• The largest positive number that can be represented in two’s complement no-
tation in an n-bit binary number is 2n−1 − 1. For example, if n = 8, then the
largest positive number is 01111111 = 27 − 1 = 127.
• Similarly, the “most negative” number is −2n−1 , so if n = 8, then it is 10000000,
which is −27 = − 128. Note that the negative of the most negative number
(in this case, 128) cannot be represented in this notation.
8 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
1.1.2.1 Addition and Subtraction of Signed Binary Numbers
The same addition algorithm that was used for unsigned binary numbers also works
properly for two’s complement numbers.
00000101 = 5
+ 11110101 = -11
11111010 = -6
Subtraction is also done in a similar way: to subtract A from B, take the two’s
complement of A and then add this number to B.
The conditions for detecting overflow are different for signed and unsigned num-
bers, however. If we use algorithm 1.3 to add two unsigned numbers, then if c is
1 when the addition terminates, this indicates that the result has an absolute value
too large to fit the number of bits allowed. With signed numbers, however, c is not
relevant, and an overflow occurs when the signs of both numbers being added are the
same but the sign of the result is opposite. If the two numbers being added have
opposite signs, however, then an overflow cannot occur.
For example, consider the sum of 1 and −1:
00000001 = 1
+ 11111111 = -1
00000000 = 0 Correct!
In this case, the addition will overflow, but it is not an error, since the result that
we get (without considering the overflow) is exactly correct.
On the other hand, if we compute the sum of 127 and 1, then a serious error
occurs:
01111111 = 127
+ 00000001 = 1
10000000 = -128 Uh-oh!
Therefore, we must be very careful when doing signed binary arithmetic that we
take steps to detect bogus results. In general:
• If A and B are of the same sign, but A + B is of the opposite sign, then an
overflow or wraparound error has occurred.
1.1. REPRESENTING INTEGERS 9
• If A and B are of different signs, then A + B will never overflow or wraparound.
1.1.2.2 Shifting Signed Binary Numbers
Another useful property of the two’s complement notation is the ease with which
numbers can be multiplied or divided by two. To multiply a number by two, simply
shift the number “up” (to the left) by one bit, placing a 0 in the least significant bit.
To divide a number in half, simply shift the the number “down” (to the right) by one
bit (but do not change the sign bit).
Note that in the case of odd numbers, the effect of shifting to the right one bit
is like dividing in half, rounded towards −∞, so that 51 shifted to the right one bit
becomes 25, while -51 shifted to the right one bit becomes -26.
00000001 = 1
Double 00000010 = 2
Halve 00000000 = 0
00110011 = 51
Double 01100110 = 102
Halve 00011001 = 25
11001101 = -51
Double 10011010 = -102
Halve 11100110 = -26
1.1.2.3 Hexadecimal Notation
Writing numbers in binary notation can soon get tedious, since even relatively small
numbers require many binary digits to express. A more compact notation, called hex-
adecimal (base 16), is usually used to express large binary numbers. In hexadecimal,
each digit represents four unsigned binary digits.
Another notation, which is not as common currently, is called octal and uses base
eight to represent groups of three bits. Figure 1.4 show examples of binary, decimal,
octal, and hexadecimal numbers.
For example, the number 20010 can be written as 11001000 2 , C816 , or 3108 .
10 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
Figure 1.4: Hexadecimal and Octal
Binary 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111
Decimal 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Hex 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Octal 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Binary 1000 1001 1010 1011 1100 1101 1110 1111
Decimal 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Hex 8 9 A B C D E F
Octal 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
1.2 Representing Characters
Just as sequences of bits can be used to represent numbers, they can also be used to
represent the letters of the alphabet, as well as other characters.
Since all sequences of bits represent numbers, one way to think about representing
characters by sequences of bits is to choose a number that corresponds to each char-
acter. The most popular correspondence currently is the ASCII character set. ASCII,
which stands for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, uses 7-bit
integers to represent characters, using the correspondence shown in table 1.5.
When the ASCII character set was chosen, some care was taken to organize the
way that characters are represented in order to make them easy for a computer to
manipulate. For example, all of the letters of the alphabet are arranged in order,
so that sorting characters into alphabetical order is the same as sorting in numerical
order. In addition, different classes of characters are arranged to have useful relations.
For example, to convert the code for a lowercase letter to the code for the same letter
in uppercase, simply set the 6th bit of the code to 0 (or subtract 32). ASCII is by no
means the only character set to have similar useful properties, but it has emerged as
the standard.
The ASCII character set does have some important limitations, however. One
problem is that the character set only defines the representations of the characters
used in written English. This causes problems with using ASCII to represent other
written languages. In particular, there simply aren’t enough bits to represent all the
written characters of languages with a larger number of characters (such as Chinese
1.3. REPRESENTING PROGRAMS 11
Figure 1.5: The ASCII Character Set
00 NUL 01 SOH 02 STX 03 ETX 04 EOT 05 ENQ 06 ACK 07 BEL
08 BS 09 HT 0A NL 0B VT 0C NP 0D CR 0E SO 0F SI
10 DLE 11 DC1 12 DC2 13 DC3 14 DC4 15 NAK 16 SYN 17 ETB
18 CAN 19 EM 1A SUB 1B ESC 1C FS 1D GS 1E RS 1F US
20 SP 21 ! 22 " 23 # 24 $ 25 % 26 & 27 ’
28 ( 29 ) 2A * 2B + 2C , 2D - 2E . 2F /
30 0 31 1 32 2 33 3 34 4 35 5 36 6 37 7
38 8 39 9 3A : 3B ; 3C < 3D = 3E > 3F ?
40 @ 41 A 42 B 43 C 44 D 45 E 46 F 47 G
48 H 49 I 4A J 4B K 4C L 4D M 4E N 4F O
50 P 51 Q 52 R 53 S 54 T 55 U 56 V 57 W
58 X 59 Y 5A Z 5B [ 5C 5D ] 5E ^ 5F
60 ` 61 a 62 b 63 c 64 d 65 e 66 f 67 g
68 h 69 i 6A j 6B k 6C l 6D m 6E n 6F o
70 p 71 q 72 r 73 s 74 t 75 u 76 v 77 w
78 x 79 y 7A z 7B { 7C | 7D } 7E ~ 7F DEL
or Japanese). Already new character sets which address these problems (and can be
used to represent characters of many languages side by side) are being proposed, and
eventually there will unquestionably be a shift away from ASCII to a new multilan-
guage standard1 .
1.3 Representing Programs
Just as groups of bits can be used to represent numbers, they can also be used
to represent instructions for a computer to perform. Unlike the two’s complement
notation for integers, which is a standard representation used by nearly all computers,
the representation of instructions, and even the set of instructions, varies widely from
one type of computer to another.
The MIPS architecture, which is the focus of later chapters in this document, uses
1
This shift will break many, many existing programs. Converting all of these programs will keep
many, many programmers busy for some time.
12 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
a relatively simple and straightforward representation. Each instruction is exactly 32
bits in length, and consists of several bit fields, as depicted in figure 1.6.
Figure 1.6: MIPS R2000 Instruction Formats
6 bits 5 bits 5 bits 5 bits 5 bits 6 bits
Register op reg1 reg2 des shift funct
Immediate op reg1 reg2 16-bit constant
Jump op 26-bit constant
The first six bits (reading from the left, or high-order bits) of each instruction
are called the op field. The op field determines whether the instruction is a regis-
ter, immediate, or jump instruction, and how the rest of the instruction should be
interpreted. Depending on what the op is, parts of the rest of the instruction may
represent the names of registers, constant memory addresses, 16-bit integers, or other
additional qualifiers for the op.
If the op field is 0, then the instruction is a register instruction, which generally
perform an arithmetic or logical operations. The funct field specifies the operation
to perform, while the reg1 and reg2 represent the registers to use as operands, and
the des field represents the register in which to store the result. For example, the
32-bit hexadecimal number 0x02918020 represents, in the MIPS instruction set, the
operation of adding the contents of registers 20 and 17 and placing the result in
register 16.
Field op reg1 reg2 des shift funct
Width 6 bits 5 bits 5 bits 5 bits 5 bits 6 bits
Values 0 20 17 16 0 add
Binary 000000 10100 10001 10000 00000 100000
If the op field is not 0, then the instruction may be either an immediate or jump
instruction, depending on the value of the op field.
1.4 Memory Organization
We’ve seen how sequences of binary digits can be used to represent numbers, char-
acters, and instructions. In a computer, these binary digits are organized and ma-
1.4. MEMORY ORGANIZATION 13
nipulated in discrete groups, and these groups are said to be the memory of the
computer.
1.4.1 Units of Memory
The smallest of these groups, on most computers, is called a byte. On nearly all
currently popular computers a byte is composed of 8 bits.
The next largest unit of memory is usually composed of 16 bits. What this unit
is called varies from computer to computer– on smaller machines, this is often called
a word, while on newer architectures that can handle larger chunks of data, this is
called a halfword.
The next largest unit of memory is usually composed of 32 bits. Once again, the
name of this unit varies– on smaller machines, it is referred to as a long, while on
newer and larger machines it is called a word.
Finally, on the newest machines, the computer also can handle data in groups of
64 bits. On a smaller machine, this is known as a quadword, while on a larger machine
this is known as a long.
1.4.1.1 Historical Perspective
There have been architectures that have used nearly every imaginable word size– from
6-bit bytes to 9-bit bytes, and word sizes ranging from 12 bits to 48 bits. There are
even a few architectures that have no fixed word size at all (such as the CM-2) or
word sizes that can be specified by the operating system at runtime.
Over the years, however, most architectures have converged on 8-bit bytes and
32-bit longwords. An 8-bit byte is a good match for the ASCII character set (which
has some popular extensions that require 8 bits), and a 32-bit word has been, at least
until recently, large enough for most practical purposes.
1.4.2 Addresses and Pointers
Each unique byte2 of the computer’s memory is given a unique identifier, known as
its address. The address of a piece of memory is often refered to as a pointer to that
2
In some computers, the smallest distinct unit of memory is not a byte. For the sake of simplicity,
however, this section assumes that the smallest distinct unit of memory on the computer in question
is a byte.
14 CHAPTER 1. DATA REPRESENTATION
piece of memory– the two terms are synonymous, although there are many contexts
where one is commonly used and the other is not.
The memory of the computer itself can often be thought of as a large array (or
group of arrays) of bytes of memory. In this model, the address of each byte of
memory is simply the index of the memory array location where that byte is stored.
1.4.3 Summary
In this chapter, we’ve seen how computers represent integers using groups of bits, and
how basic arithmetic and other operations can be performed using this representation.
We’ve also seen how the integers or groups of bits can be used to represent sev-
eral different kinds of data, including written characters (using the ASCII character
codes), instructions for the computer to execute, and addresses or pointers, which
can be used to reference other data.
There are also many other ways that information can be represented using groups
of bits, including representations for rational numbers (usually by a representation
called floating point), irrational numbers, graphics, arbitrary character sets, and so
on. These topics, unfortunately, are beyond the scope of this book.
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