Modern computers have become so fast that programming languages have more and more abstracted the CPU instructions into powerful high-level language constructs. With that, programmers have lost the understanding how CPUs and computers really work. This isn't usually a problem as long as your computer is fast enough to do the job you need to have done. But if you need to write an operating system or hypervisor, you must know how your CPU works. Unfortunately, most computer science students no longer learn much about the internals of their computers. This results in a shortage of good operating system and hypervisor developers. RuMARS was developed to get more people excited again about low-level programming and learning some basics of CPU programming.
RuMARS is a new implementation of the Core War Memory Array Redcode Simulator (MARS) that was first proposed by D. G. Jones and A. K. Dewdney in 1984. A MARS is a virtual arena where 2 or more programmers can let their programs fight against each other. The programs are written in an assembly dialect called Redcode. Core War has evolved since the original version. RuMARS supports the ICWS-94 standard draft and some additional extensions like read and write limits and new features introduced by pMARS. RuMARS purposely adds new features so that new strategies need to be developed to compete successfully against other warriors. However, in the default configuration it is still compatible with ICWS-94 compliant simulators.
For today's tournaments we recommend to use read and write limits and low limits of processes to foster the creation of new strategies and more complex warriors.
RuMARS is not just a virtual machine for Redcode programs but also an integrated development environment to write and debug Redcode programs.
Not yet available via RubyGems.org!
Install the gem and add to the application's Gemfile by executing:
$ bundle add UPDATE_WITH_YOUR_GEM_NAME_PRIOR_TO_RELEASE_TO_RUBYGEMS_ORG
If bundler is not being used to manage dependencies, install the gem by executing:
$ gem install UPDATE_WITH_YOUR_GEM_NAME_PRIOR_TO_RELEASE_TO_RUBYGEMS_ORG
See the RuMARS Documentation
Not yet ready for use. This software is still under development.
To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To
release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run
bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push
git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to
rubygems.org.
Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/scrapper/rumars.