Download a copy of the ARC Simulator from this web page. If you are not already familiar with the ARC Simulator, read the information on that page before, during, or after you download the simulator. Use the copy provided on that web page, not the one available directly from the textbook because I've fixed the jar file so you can click on it to run it.
Code and simulate an ARC program that includes code that looks like this:
.org 0x40000C
first: 5 ! Start an array of integers
10
. ! Any number of additional lines
. ! containing numbers
. ! go here.
last: -5
sum: 0
Your program is to compute the sum of all the numbers between first and last (including both of those) and store the result in sum.
Save your program in a file named "arc_add.asm" and mail the file to me by midnight of the due date. Be sure to put "CSCI-343 Assignment 6" in the subject line and to include your name and student ID number in the body of your message.
This assignment's simplicity is deceptive. First of all, note that the .org directive causes the first number to occupy memory location 0x30000C. If you try to load the first number into a register using an instruction like, "ld [first], %r1" you will get an error message from the assembler because the address 0x40000C will not fit into the 13-bit immediate field of an ld instruction. Instead, you will have to break the address into two parts, load them into a single register, and then use that register for loading the value you want. For example, you could use a sethi instruction to load the leftmost 22 bits of 0x0400000C into register 5, then use an or instruction to load the rightmost ten bits of 0x0400000C into register 5, and then load the contents of first into register 1 with "ld %r5, %r0, %r1."
The other issue with this program is that a natural way to implement it is to use indexing to step through the elements of the array. So you could load the address of first into some register, say register 5 again, and use code like this to access succesive elements of the array:
add %r0, %r0, %r6 ! clear index register
loop: ... ! test whether last has been reached
... ! add next number
add %6, 4, %6 ! increment index register
ld [%r5+%r6], %r1 ! get next element of array
b loop:
The problem here is that the ARC simulator would execute the ld instruction just fine, but the ARC assembler doesn't recognize the syntax of the assembly language statement. Until I finish my "new-improved" ARC assembler, you'll have to figure out a way around the problem, for example by adding 4 to the address in register 5 each time through the loop instead of using register 6 at all.
Also, note that the ld instruction I wrote in the previous paragraph is not recognized by the existing ARC assembler. You would have to write that code as "ld %r5, %r1" to get it to assemble.
If you would like to hone your ARC assembly language programming skills, write your code as a subroutine that receives two addresses as parameters (in registers) and returns the sum in another register. Code a main program that uses the subroutine to add two or three different sets of numbers.
If you do this, be sure to mention it in your email so that I am sure to give you the extra credit.