To expand a bit in terrible pseudocode that I sort of remember from Atmel ucs: Assembly: mov 0x1,reg2 # put 1 in register 2 Machine Code: 0xAC12 # Move an imm

To expand a bit in terrible pseudocode that I sort of remember from Atmel ucs: Assembly: mov 0x1,reg2 # put 1 in register 2 Machine Code: 0xAC12 # Move an immediate value into register 2 Assembly: mov *reg2,reg1 # put contents of address in reg2 in reg1 Machine Code: 0xBF201 # Move an indirect value, offset 0, address in reg2 to reg1 It's a much more straightforward transformation than the one from C->ASM though. Edit: This link might make more sense... the difference is mainly between the mnemonic and the encoding: http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/mrc/people/jff/digital/MIPSir.html http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/mrc/people/jff/digital/MIPSir.html You'll also notice there are explicit instructions for immediate ops, but no two assembly schemes seem to share the same level of abstraction.