T H E M I X S I M U L A T O R A N D A S S E M B L E R

- Y = = = = = Y -
| o \| | \/ | | x |/ o |
\ / \ = = = = = / \ /

T H E M I X S I M U L A T O R A N D A S S E M B L E R

Chaoji Li<[email protected]>

March 22, 2008

There are so many MIX simulators all over the world. The reason for this
one is that it is written in perl as a well defined module, aiming to be
reused. People can also use this one as a reference model when testing
their own simulators. I suggest everyone who really wants to read the
programs in TAOCP should implement one by himself, so as to understand
the MIX machine and the MIX instructions better. MIX is also similar to
various machines produced in 1960s. To write the simulator yourself would
be a rewarding trip if you are curious about the history of computer
programming.

This simulator supports almost all instructions, except for float operations.

Card reader/punch and printer are supported.
Disk/tape are partial supported.

===============
I N S T A L L
===============

(1) Extract the source tar ball:

tar -xvzf Hardware-Simulator-MIX-<version>.tar.gz

(2) Install "Build" module from CPAN.
(3) Run following commands in the extracted directory:

perl Build.PL
perl Build
perl Build test
perl Build install

Steps (2) and (3) is not required if you only want to play
within the extracted directory.

===========================
D O C U M E N T A T I O N
===========================

perldoc mixsim.pl
perldoc mixasm.pl
perldoc Hardware::Simulator::MIX
perldoc doc/mix.pod

=======================
Q U I C K S T A R T
=======================

In the package directory,

>perl mixasm.pl mixal/primes

Two files will be generated in the current directory.

* primes.lst -- listing files
* primes.crd -- card deck file which can be loaded by mix simulator

>perl mixsim.pl --batch primes.crd

The outputs are:

== PAGE 1 OF 1 ==
FIRST FIVE HUNDRED PRIMES
0002 0233 0547 0877 1229 1597 1993 2371 2749 3187
...
0229 0541 0863 1223 1583 1987 2357 2741 3181 3571

You can also enter the interactive mode. An example session is
shown below.

>perl mixsim.pl primes.crd

M I X S i m u l a t o r

Type 'h' for help messages.
MIX> g 3000
rA: + 00 00 00 00 00 +0
rX: + 00 33 30 30 30 +8775582 3000
rI1: + 00 00 +0000 rI2: - 00 30 -0030
rI3: + 46 56 +3000 rI4: + 00 00 +0000
rI5: + 00 00 +0000 rI6: + 00 00 +0000
rJ: + 00 14 +0014 NO EQ 1325u
3000: IOC 0,0(18)
MIX> g 3029
rA: + 30 30 30 30 30 +511305630 00000
rX: + 30 30 32 32 39 +511313959 00229
rI1: + 00 00 +0000 rI2: + 55 51 +3571
rI3: + 00 19 +0019 rI4: + 31 51 +2035
rI5: + 00 00 +0000 rI6: + 00 00 +0000
rJ: + 47 18 +3026 NO EQ 1183474u
3029: HLT 0,0(2)
MIX> prt
Page 1 of 1
FIRST FIVE HUNDRED PRIMES
0002 0233 0547 0877 1229 1597 1993 2371 2749 3187
....
0229 0541 0863 1223 1583 1987 2357 2741 3181 3571
MIX>

========================================================================
C H A N G E L O G
========================================================================
0.4: May 22, 2008

- Performance improve, nearly 4 times
- document

0.3: Feb 28, 2008

- Fix unasm bug CMP? not handled
- Fix MIX.pm: our deprecated, add document

0.2: Feb 27, 2008

- Add unasm in mixsim.pl
- Add print machine status
- Remove the print_all_regs in MIX.pm

0.10: Feb 24, 2008

- Add CON support for mixasm.pl, parse_w_value

0.09: Feb 17, 2008

- Fix bug: mixasm.pl: no TRANS card if no end of line after "END
START"

- Add feature: show execution count and time for
instrunctions in the 'd' command

0.08: Feb 07, 2008

- Fix a timing bug in wait_until_device_ready (+=)

0.07: Feb 06, 2008

- Add timing

0.06: Jan 14, 2007

- Add disk and tape support
- rewrite io device management

0.05: Dec 13, 2006

- support full instructions
- support only part of the io devices(card reader/punch, printer)

0.04:
- Apr. 2006: mixsim.pl: add a command line user interface
: mixasm.pl: add generate code

- Nov. 2006: create test cases; fix some bugs

0.03: add mixasm.pl
0.02: add load operations, display registers and flags
0.01: basic reset, only halt instruction