Our main purpose in writing this book is to show how to write programs for embedded systems that use the MIPS processor. This includes the R2000 and R3000 designed by MIPS Computer Systems, and all its derivatives.
The MIPS architecture was developed at Stanford University by John Hennessy, together with of a group of graduate students. After completing the project in 1984, he co-founded MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., which was formed to build high-performance UNIX workstations using his new architecture.
The chip is now being manufactured by five licensed vendors. Since its original developement for use in UNIX workstations, it has attracted considerable following in the embedded-systems community and is now used for building such things as laser printers, network controllers, and X terminals. As computer consultants hired to provide software support for developers of MIPS-based embedded systems, we discovered that although there are an adequate number of documents describing the hardware architecture, there was almost nothing available that described how the chip is programmed. It was to meet this need that we decided to write our book. The topics we cover include software conventions, initializing the processor, flushing the caches, and exception handling, using example programs with line-by-line explanations.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable critical help received from the following reviewers: John Hennessy (Stanford University), Charles Price (SGI/MIPS Technology), and David Meyer (Purdue Universiy), Mike Amy (LSI Logic), Phil Bourakis (IDT), Jim Alsup (EPI), and Dominic Sweetman (Algorithmics). Special thanks to Bruce Spatz at Morgan Kaufmann Publishers and Lee and Jennifer Ballentine at Professional Book Center, without whose encouragement we might not have finished this book (at least in this century).
To provide a discussion forum for MIPS programmers, the authors have established an electronically-delivered free newsletter. To subscribe to this newsletter, do one of the following: Send Internet email to maug@carmel.com, subject "info," or call our BBS at 408-626-4068, login "maug," no password. The authors are consultants who can be contacted by writing to 100 Dolores Street, Suite 242, Carmel CA 93923, or by sending email to elf@carmel.com or pjb@carmel.com.
|
Erin Farquhar Philip Bunce |
.
Note: The BBS and the email autoresponder have been discontinued.
Their place has been taken by this Website.