LEGv8 Runtime Simulator

This project is a full integrated development environment implementing the LEGv8 assembly language standard, to be used in classroom settings. The LEGv8 assembly language is defined by the ARM edition of "Computer Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface" by David A. Patterson and John L. Hennessy as a more approachable alternative to the full ARMv8 instruction set. The MIPS edition of that same book is used in the Computer Organization course at ASU. This class makes heavy use of the "MARS" MIPS simulator, which allows students to write and run their own MIPS assembly programs. Writing assembly language programs is a key component of the course, as assembly programs have many design difficulties as compared to a high-level language. This project is a fork of the MARS project. The interface and functionality remain largely the same aside from the change to supporting the LEGv8 syntax and instruction set. Faculty used to the MARS environment from teaching Computer Organization should only have to adjust to the new language standard, as the editor and environment will be familiar. The available instructions are basic arithmetic/logical operations, memory interaction, and flow control. Both floating-point and integer operations are supported, with limited support of conditional execution. Only branches can be conditionally executed, per LEGv8. Directives remain in the format supported by MARS, as documentation on ARM-style directives is both sparse and agreeable to this standard. The operating system functions supported by the MARS simulator also remain, as there is no generally standardized requirements for operating system interactions.