MARS

MARS provides a lightweight interactive development environment for writing and executing MIPS assembly language programs, aimed at educational use with standard textbooks such as Patterson and Hennessy’s *Computer Organization and Design*. The GUI combines a code editor with spreadsheet‑style views of registers and memory, allowing values to be inspected and edited in hexadecimal or decimal. It supports floating‑point and coprocessor registers, a bit‑level view of 32‑bit floating‑point values, and tools for cache performance analysis.

The simulator offers variable‑speed single‑step execution, including reverse stepping, and a command‑line mode that lets instructors batch‑test multiple programs. A “Tool” utility enables control of simulated devices, and sample resources such as a Fibonacci example are included.

Distributed as a Java JAR, MARS runs on macOS (with possible display quirks) and is released “as is” without active maintenance, targeting students and instructors who need a straightforward platform for exploring MIPS architecture.