SPIM is an emulator for the MIPS instruction set

• reads text files containing instruction + directives
• converts to machine code and loads into "memory"
• provides debugging capabilities
  • single-step, breakpoints, view registers/memory, ...
• provides mechanism to interact with operating system (syscall)

• provide convenient/mnemonic ways to do common operations

  e.g. move $s0, $v0 instead of addu $s0, $0, $v0