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MIX Assembler, Simulator, and Debugger

Build Status

About

This is a project I began because I was reading The Art of Computer Programming (I recommend this book for anyone who's interested in both mathematics and computer science). This book, contrary to many other books, use the hypothetical computer called MIX and the assembly language MIXAL associated with it. This program will provide tools to assemble and load MIXAL programs onto a MIX computer and run these programs.

Usage

Build

To build the project, just run gradle build. The mix file in the root directory is a bash script which runs java -jar /path/to/MIX.jar with the current directory in mind. Adding the mix to path will allow you to run mix from any directory.

Example

Make a new file in any directory called hello.asm with the follwoing code.

* HELLO WORLD
PRINTER EQU  18
START   OUT  HELLO(PRINTER)
        HLT
HELLO   ALF  HELLO
        ALF   WORL
        ALF  D
        END  START

Then run:

mix hello.asm

You should see the following output

HELLO WORLD

Assembling

MIX has three modes, one of which is assembly. To simply assemble MIX code, run one of the two:

mix -a hello.asm
mix --assemble hello.asm

This will make a new file called which contains 4000 words divided into a sign and 5 bytes.

Simulating

To simulate the MIX code, run one of the three:

mix hello.asm
mix -s hello.asm
mix --simulate hello.asm

Note that not specifying any option is equivalent to the simulation mode.

Debugging

To debug MIX code, run one of the three:

mdb hello.asm
mix -d hello.asm
mix --debug hello.asm

Status

The assembler is complete, but requires more testing. The simulator is almost finished, but input output is not complete.

LOL

I'm honestly surprised that I even came this far.

TODO

  • Handle Overflow (esp. during NUM).
  • Implement Disk and Drum Units.
  • Implement Paper Tape unit.