Doug Taggart presented an introduction to the MIPS assembly language, as well as a general overview of coding in assembly. Assembly language is used to control microprocessors and micro-controllers, among other things. It has the smallest amount of abstraction from machine code, and it is quite easy to translate lines of assembly code into binary machine code.

The discussion focused on the basic aspects of MIPS assembly language such as basic arithmetic operation, conditional statements, and control statements. Coding assembly in a unix shell was also reviewed. A basic banking programing written in MIPS assembly, was demonstrated which  encapsulated much of the assembly language functionality covered in the presentation.

The second half of the presentation was an open discussion revolving around the differences between Stockton and Rowan’s Computer Science programs. A brief descriptions of Rowan’s CS faculty was given with emphasis placed on individual research interests and courses taught. The level of student interest was also discussed as was a potential crossover event for the Stockton Dead Coder’s Society and the Rowan Chapter of the Association for Computing Machines.

Feel free to download a copy of the slides used during the presentation here: MIPStalk