Dockerized MARS

Introduction

The MIPS Assembler and Runtime Simulator (MARS) is a good program for running (simulated) MIPS assemby code. If you want to get it up and running quickly (without installing Java on your host system), this is the tool for you. It contains configuration used to spin up MARS in a Docker container, whether you are running on GNU/Linux, macOS, or Windows.

Notes

If you are on GNU/Linux, this will only work if you are running an Xorg display server on your host machine. (Wayland and Mir are not directly supported).

Important, the MARS program will only be able to see assembly programs that are contained in the ./dockerized-mars directory. You will not be able to browse for files that are just anywhere on your computer. This is because we are bind mounting the ./dockerized-mars directory into the Docker container.

Setup

Docker must be installed.

git clone https://github.com/eankeen/dockerized-mars
cd dockerized-mars
chmod +x ./start.sh
sudo ./start.sh

Running start.sh as sudo is required because connecting to the Docker daemon socket requires superuser privileges.