Programming Assignment 6
Due: December 8, 2000 11:59 PM
 

Writing a Simulator

Problem Statement

In this programming assignment, we ask you to write a simulator for the LC-1 ISA in LC-2 assembly language. You will use the simulator you write to simulate a program written in LC-1 machine language. The LC-1 is an accumulator-based architecture. Thus, there is only one register. This register is called the accumulator. Since there is only one register, there is no need to explicitly specify the accumulator in an LC-1 instruction. The LC-1 ISA specifies seven instructions. They are Call, Return, Add, Brn, Load, Store, and Stop. Three bits in the instruction, bits <15:13>, are used to represent the opcode. The rest of the bits in the instruction, bits <12:0>, may be used to represent a 13-bit address. The addressing-mode is direct. The memory space being simulated contains 2¹³ locations, and the addressibility is 16 bits. The LC-1 ISA has one condition register which is modified by two of the seven instructions: Add and Load. It is set when a negative value is stored into the accumulator, otherwise, it is cleared.
 

LC-1 Instruction Set

• Call

Operation: Push PC; PC = address13
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
0  0  0			address13

Description: Push the PC onto the stack and load the address13 into the PC.

• Return

Operation: Pop PC
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
0  0  1			0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Description: Pop a value from the stack and store the value into the PC.

• Add⁺

Operation: Acc = Acc + mem[address13];
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
0  1  0			address13

Description: The content of memory location address13 is added to the accumulator. The result is stored back into the accumulator.

• Brn

Operation: if (n) PC = address13;
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
0  1  1			address13

Description: If the n condition bit is set, address13 is stored into the PC.

• Load⁺

Operation: Acc = mem[address13];
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
1  0  0			address13

Description: The content of memory location address13 is stored into the accumulator.

• Store

Operation: mem[address13] = Acc;
Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
1  0  1			address13

Description: The accumulator is stored into memory location address13.

• Stop

Instruction Format:

15	14	13	12	11	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0
1  1  0			0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Description: Print the message "Stopping the LC-1 simulator" to the console and stop execution.

⁺ Sets the n condition register.

Program Details

The simulator that you write in LC-2 assembly language should be placed starting at memory location x3000. The program that you write in LC-1 machine language should be placed starting at memory location x6000. Since an address specified in LC-1 is 13-bits and an address specified in LC-2 is 16-bits, we can not simply use an LC-2 load/store instruction to simulate an LC-1 load/store instruction. To get around this problem, we apply a simple workaround. Append the 3-bit bit pattern, 011, to the front of all LC-1 addresses. For example, suppose you have the following LC-1 instruction,

100 0 0001 0000 0010 ; Load from address 0 0001 0000 0010

The LC-1 simulator that you write must follow the following guidelines. The PC should be stored in memory location x3100. The accumulator should be stored in memory location x3200. Each time the PC or the accumulator changes during the simulation of the LC-1 program, memory location x3100 or x3200 should be updated to reflect this change.

The stack for the Call and Return instructions should begin at memory location x4000 (ie. the stack pointer should be initialized to x3FFF).

You do not have to check for invalid instructions. You may assume that the LC-1 machine language program contains only valid instructions.

To begin writing your simulator, we suggest starting with the code template shown below. The majority of the work is performed in the subroutine DECODE. The main loop of the simulator calls the FETCH and DECODE subroutines for each LC-1 instruction to simulate.

        .ORIG  x3000
;=========================
; initialization block
;=========================
        ; ...
;=======================
; fetch the instruction
;=======================
AGAIN   JSR    FETCH
;=======================
; decode the instruction
;=======================
        JSR    DECODE
        BRnzp  AGAIN

;===============================
; subroutine to perform fetch
;===============================
FETCH   ; ...
        ; ...
        RET

;===============================
; subroutine to perform decode
;   and the rest of the
;   instruction cycle
;===============================
DECODE  ; ...
        ; ...
        RET
        .END

How to write the LC-1 program

In a separate file, you should write the LC-1 program using the .FILL pseudo-op. The LC-1 program begins with the line .ORIG x6000 indicating where this program is to be loaded into memory.

.ORIG x6000  ; An LC-1 program which starts at location x6000
.FILL x8003  ; Load #10 into the accumulator
.FILL x4004  ; Add #20 to the accumulator
.FILL xC000  ; Stop the LC-1 simulator
.FILL #10    ;
.FILL #20    ;
.END

If you decide to do this assignment, please follow the instructions below

• Your code should have a comment block at the beginning of the file. Include in this comment block, your name, your ECE login name, student number, and a brief description of the program. Your description should serve as a general summary of your program's approach to the problem and will aid in grading. It will also serve as a guideline for assigning partial credit. It is in your best interest to make all of your ideas clear through this summary and through commenting within your code.
• Think carefully about the design of your program before you start writing your code. Try to make a flowchart in the beginning.
• Submit your assembly file using the submit program or the submit script. The program number is 6.
• Check your ECE email to verify that you have submitted your program correctly. If you don't get a confirmation, we might not see your submission.