Overview - First time use of OVP simulators and emulators with MIPS processors and platforms

Introduction

Welcome to the Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) simulator and models of MIPS Technologies' processors. These make it easy to develop software for MIPS processors on your desktop PC running Windows XP or Linux.

The OVPsim simulator is available to download and use and the MIPS processor models are certified by MIPS Technologies under their MIPS-Verified(tm) program and are available as open source.

Support is available through our forums, and information on model availability is through our wiki based library pages.

You will need to be registered and logged-in to download any files from this OVP site. Click here to register/login.

OVP was founded by Imperas and they provide embedded software development tools including multicore debug and advanced software verification and the tools target MIPS processors for use with bare metal and embedded OSes, such as Linux. If you need an OVP compliant simulator for commercial use - please contact Imperas.

To watch recorded demonstrations of how easy it is to download the OVP MIPS Malta Virtual Platform, download and load Linux on it, and then boot Linux to the user prompt in under 5 seconds... and then debug running applications then click here to have a look at the videos.

Quick Download links #1 - Standalone Demos

Download and install the OVP simulator and run standalone MIPS demos

Quick Download links #2 - Booting Linux on the MIPS Malta Platform using OVP

Download, install, and run MIPS Malta platform booting from Linux2.6 RamDisk.
This provides you with an OVP Virtual MIPS Malta Platform that will boot Debian Linux single user in a 2GHz Windows XP PC laptop in about 5 seconds.

Quick Download links #3 - Editing/Changing the hardware in the OVP MIPS Malta Platform

Editing/Changing the hardware in the OVP MIPS Malta Platform.

Quick Download links #4 - MIPS Bare Metal Platforms - for Embedded Software Development

A Bare Metal platform is a simulation/emulation of a MIPS processor running with MIPS binary object code with maximum ram and no need for other peripherals. It is perfect for starting to develop MIPS code on a Windows host. You cross-compile a normal C application and load it on the MIPS Bare Metal platform - and it will run - allowing you to hook up Eclipse, GDB etc to debug your application. By having source of the platform you can easily add other hardware components and build up your platform.

Download and use Bare Metal MIPS platforms for embedded software development.

Summary

Thank you for having an initial look at the OVP support for MIPS processors.
There is more on this website related to MIPS.
Please have a look at the Download MIPS page for more platforms, examples etc.
Also there is a presentation explaining the demos, and also a video showing the downloading and running of a couple of the demos.
Please also look at the library wiki for pages about MIPS processors, platforms, and peripherals

MIPS-Verified(tm) - all processor models of MIPS Technologies processors available from this site are now MIPS-Verified(tm). Please see the associated press release for more information.

Also on this site are MIPS GCC, GDB etc toolchains you may need to compile and run applications targetting MIPS processors.