1. General description · free software · GPL · est. 2006
EduMIPS64 is a visual MIPS64 processor simulator for Computer Architecture courses. Write assembly, execute it cycle by cycle, and inspect the pipeline, registers, memory and caches while it runs.
Desktop app for Windows, macOS & Linux · single JAR · CLI ·
manual (PDF)
Instructions flow through IF, ID, EX, MEM and WB — plus the FP adder, multiplier and divider — in a live, color-coded view.
Registers, memory and execution statistics update at every cycle, so cause and effect are always visible.
Configure L1 instruction and data caches — size, block size, associativity — and watch hit/miss counts as your code runs. New in 1.4.0.
RAW, WAW and structural stalls show up right in the cycle diagram. Toggle forwarding and watch CPI change.
Native desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux, a single JAR, a scriptable CLI — or nothing to install at all atweb.edumips.org.
Free software (GPL) that can operate fully off-line with included help. UI and manuals in English, Italian and Simplified Chinese, and an IEEE Transactions on Education paper behind it. Twenty years in Computer Architecture courses.
Or open one of the bundled examples. The parser tells you exactly what's wrong, and where, before anything runs.
Single step, multi-step, or run to completion. The pipeline view and cycle diagram show where every instruction is, every cycle.
Registers, memory, stalls, CPI, cache hits and misses. Turn forwarding on, resize the cache, run it again and compare.
.data
vec: .word64 1, 2, 3, 4
.code
main: daddi r1, r0, 4
loop: daddi r1, r1, -1
bne r1, r0, loop
syscall 0Development started in 2006, when a group of students at the University of Catania decided they didn't want to be tied to Windows to complete their Computer Architecture assignments — and writing a CPU simulator from scratch sounded fun. It began as a GPL Java port of WinMIPS64 and quickly became a stand-alone project.
Since 2008 the simulator has been maintained bylupino3, one of the founders. TheChangeLogtells part of the story; the earliest development happened over email, using lupino3 as a human VCS.
Contributions are welcome, in the spirit of free software. The simplest one:file a bug or suggest an improvement. Security issues go through the public issue tracker too.
Want to write code? Start with thedeveloper guide, then reach out to the maintainers on GitHub — they'll point you to where your skills help most.
| Date | Rev | Codename | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.4.0 | WalkOfLife | EduMIPS64 1.4.0 is out, marking the 20th anniversary of the project! Highlights include a packaged Electron desktop app for Linux, macOS and Windows, expanded MIPS64 Release 6 support (three-operand | |
| 1.3.0 | Lourdes | EduMIPS64 1.3.0 is out! This is a release introducing a backwards-incompatible change to | |
| 1.2.10 | FP - Freedom and Peace | EduMIPS64 1.2.10 is out! This is a bug-fix release that addresses 3 bugs. Find it on GitHub. | |
| 1.2.9 | Baby Shark | EduMIPS64 1.2.9 is out! This is a bug-fix release that fixes a LUI bug and a help bug. Find it on GitHub. | |
| 1.2.8 | NLMS | EduMIPS64 1.2.8 is out! This release contains a new experimental CLI front-end, a native Windows installer and a few bug-fixes, including a major fix for the LUI instruction. Here is the link to the release on GitHub. |
Announcements and articles from the project's twenty years.
Ten years after choosing Java to make EduMIPS64 cross-platform, the team cross-compiled the simulator core to JavaScript with GWT/JsInterop, publishing a crude proof-of-concept web UI for the project's 10th anniversary. Read more →
The VPS that hosted the web site is being turned down, so we migrated the web site to GitHub pages. The old contents have been backed up and might be added to this new site over time.
P.S. on 15 March, we deleted the project on Google Code, since the service is shutting down. All the development will continue, as usual on GitHub, and release will be uploaded on GitHub and SourceForge.
We added to our Travis CI configuration the automatic build of JAR files, so if you want to try the bleeding edge you can do it without having to compile it. The URL pointing to the always up-to-date JAR is http://lupino3.github.io/edumips64/edumips64-latest.jar. Be aware that it might be unstable.
The VPS hosting the edumips.org website was being shut down, so the site was migrated to a new VPS; some downtime was expected during the move. Read more →
All the source code has been moved to github, the SVN repository has been retired.