mipsim

MIPSim is a simple, education-oriented MIPS Assembly Language Simulator.

It consists of tools that facilitate assembly code writing, testing and debugging.

When I was learning MIPS Assembly Language, I couldn't find a simulator that could help me learn MIPS in a comfortable way. Well, of course there's SPIM. SPIM is really a powerful MIPS Simulator, much more powerful than MIPSim. However, I didn't find its user interface user-friendly. It doesn't include an editor, first of all. Writing code in notepad, or whatever text editor, may not be a big problem, I agree. However I'd really love to write the code in an application, and then test it and debug it using the same application. SPIM also doesn't help much when it comes to trace the code you write. Well you can check the final state of the registers/memory and see whether the code worked properly but that's about it. Last but not least, I didn't like its user interface at all! (no offense, it's just me) The solution was, of course, to write my own MIPS Assembly Language Editor & Simulator.

Definitely not, because MIPSim is not the best. What is the best then? There is no best in my opinion. I wouldn't have developed MIPSim if I thought that there was the best anyway. I think all MIPS simulators out there, including MIPSim, are options. Each simulator has unique advantages over the others. You should try and see which is the most comfortable to you.

That being said, I also want to note that MIPSim is still far from being a complete MIPS assembly language simulator as it lacks many important features such as simulation of floating point instructions, system calls and assembler directives.