MIPS Memory Map

Here's the official CSCI250 map of the entire MIPS 32-bit address space.

Accessing Memory through the Global Pointer, $gp

Memory-Mapped IO

this part of the address space is not occupied by memory; instead reads and writes to addresses in this area will interact with registers in the input-output devices in order determine their status or cause them to take actions.

As an example, let's talk a little about a robot program that we'll play with later

A real computer controls disk drives, network interfaces, printers, keyboards, and mice this same way.