CREATOR:
didaCtic and geneRic assEmbly progrAmming simulaTOR

CREATOR project

	URL
Creator	https://creatorsim.github.io/creator/
Documentation	https://creatorsim.github.io/wiki
Examples included	👉 RISC-V 👉 MIPS-32

Dockers for CREATOR

	URL
Docker Hub	https://hub.docker.com/repositories/creatorsim
Dockers Documentation	👉 Gateway 👉 Remote Lab

Source code and testing

	URL
Source Code	https://github.com/creatorsim/creator/
🔬 Nightly build	https://github.com/creatorsim/creator-beta/
📋 Tests	Test Descriptions

Supported Internet Browsers

Publications

2025

📰 Simulador web para RISC-V basado en la especificación SAIL

• Conference paper: Jornadas Sarteco
• Authors: Juan Carlos Cano-Resa, Félix García-Carballeira, Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos
• 🔗 Open publication

@inproceedings{cano_resa_2025_15773218,
  author    = {Cano-Resa, Juan Carlos and Garcia-Carballeira, Felix and Camarmas-Alonso, Diego and Calderon-Mateos, Alejandro},
  title     = {Simulador web para RISC-V basado en la especificación SAIL},
  booktitle = {Avances en Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores. Actas de las Jornadas SARTECO},
  year      = 2025,
  pages     = {367-376},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  month     = jun,
  venue     = {Sevilla, Spain},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.15773218},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15773218}
}

📰 Extensión del simulador CREATOR para integrar funcionalidades de Arduino: caso de estudio con el microcontrolador ESP32

• Conference paper: Jornadas Sarteco
• Authors: Elisa Utrilla-Arroyo, Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos
• 🔗 Open publication

@inproceedings{utrilla_arroyo_2025_15773284,
  author    = {Utrilla-Arroyo, Elisa and Camarmas-Alonso, Diego and Garcia-Carballeira, Felix and Calderon-Mateos, Alejandro},
  title     = {Extensión del simulador CREATOR para integrar funcionalidades de Arduino: caso de estudio con el microcontrolador ESP32},
  booktitle = {Avances en Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores. Actas de las Jornadas SARTECO},
  year      = 2025,
  pages     = {637-643},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  month     = jun,
  venue     = {Sevilla, Spain},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.15773284},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15773284}
}

📰 CREATOR: un entorno de desarrollo integrado para la docencia y la investigación en procesadores RISC-V

• Seminar: CAPAP-H
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso
• 🔗 Open publication

2024

📰 CREATOR: An Educational Integrated Development Environment for RISC-V Programming

• Journal paper: IEEE Access
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

@article{10540579,
  author  = {Camarmas-Alonso, Diego and Garcia-Carballeira, Felix and Calderon-Mateos, Alejandro and Del-Pozo-Puñal, Elias},
  journal = {IEEE Access},
  title   = {CREATOR: An Educational Integrated Development Environment for RISC-V Programming},
  year    = {2024},
  volume  = {},
  number  = {},
  pages   = {1-1},
  doi     = {10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3406935}
}

📰 Servicio de laboratorio remoto para la integración del simulador CREATOR con hardware RISC-V

• Conference paper: Jornadas Sarteco
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

@inproceedings{camarmas_alonso_2024_11632955,
  author    = {Camarmas-Alonso, Diego and Garcia-Carballeira, Felix and Calderon-Mateos, Alejandro and Del-Pozo-Puñal, Elías},
  title     = {{Servicio de laboratorio remoto para la integración del simulador CREATOR con hardware RISC-V}},
  booktitle = {{Avances en Arquitectura y Tecnología de Computadores. Actas de las Jornadas SARTECO}},
  year      = 2024,
  pages     = {65-371},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  month     = jun,
  venue     = {A Coruña, Spain},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.11632955},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11632955}
}

2023

📰 CREATOR: a tool for teaching assembly programming with RISC-V

• Conference poster: RISC-V Summit Europe
• Authors: Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

📰 Integración del simulador CREATOR con hardware RISC-V: caso de estudio con microcontrolador ESP32

• Conference paper: Jornadas Sarteco
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

@proceedings{diego_camarmas_alonso_2023_8378899,
  title     = {{Integración del simulador CREATOR con hardware RISC-V: caso de estudio con microcontrolador ESP32}},
  year      = 2023,
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  month     = sep,
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.8378899},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8378899}
}

📰 CREATOR como herramienta docente para la enseñanza de la programación en ensamblador con RISC V

• Seminar: CAPAP-H
• Authors: Félix García-Carballeira
• 🔗 Open publication

2021

📰 A new generic simulator for the teaching of assembly programming

• Conference paper: CLEI
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

@inproceedings{9640144,
  author    = {Camarmas-Alonso, Diego and García-Carballeira, Félix and Del-Pozo-Puñal, Elías and Mateos, Alejandro Calderón},
  booktitle = {2021 XLVII Latin American Computing Conference (CLEI)},
  title     = {A new generic simulator for the teaching of assembly programming},
  year      = {2021},
  volume    = {},
  number    = {},
  pages     = {1-9},
  doi       = {10.1109/CLEI53233.2021.9640144}
}

📰 CREATOR: Simulador didáctico y genérico para la programación en ensamblador

• Conference paper: Jornadas Sarteco
• Authors: Diego Camarmas-Alonso, Félix García-Carballeira, Alejandro Calderón-Mateos, Elías Del-Pozo-Puñal
• 🔗 Open publication

@proceedings{diego_camarmas_alonso_2021_5130302,
  title     = {{CREATOR: Simulador didáctico y genérico para la programación en ensamblador}},
  year      = 2021,
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  month     = jul,
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.5130302},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5130302}
}

Authors

• 🧑‍💻 Diego Camarmas Alonso
• 🧑‍💻 Félix García Carballeira
• 🧑‍💻 Alejandro Calderón Mateos

Contributors

• 🧑‍💻 Elías Del Pozo Puñal (Beta tester)
• 🧑‍💻 Lucas Elvira Martín (RISC-V and several improvements)
• 🧑‍💻 José Antonio Verde Jiménez (Real hardware integration)
• 🧑‍💻 Álvaro Guerrero Espinosa (New compiler)
• 🧑‍💻 Elisa Utrilla Arroyo (Real hardware integration)
• 🧑‍💻 Luis Daniel Casais Mezquida (Website migration, interrupts, timers, and memory-mapped devices)
• 🧑‍💻 Jorge Ramos Santana (core/tests rewrite, new web UI, new CLI, RV64 & Z80 architectures)
• 🧑‍💻 Juan Carlos Cano Resa (SAIL integration)

ChangeLog

6.0.x:

• BREAKING CHANGES:
  • New YAML architecture format (w/ JSON schema)
  • New library format (Existing libraries must be recompiled)
• New functionality:
  • Interrupts and timers
  • Memory-mapped devices
  • Validate program execution through the CLI (--validator)
• New architectures:
  • RISC-V 64
  • RISC-V 32 (w/ interrupts)
  • Z80
• User Interface:
  • Revamped web user interface
    • Revamped memory viewer
    • Vastly improved mobile support
    • New Monaco-based editor
    • Libraries now have metadata to display help
  • Vim mode in web editor
  • Revamped CLI version
• Modular design:
  • Migrate project to Vite and ES Modules, which vastly improves the developer experience
  • Update to Vue 3, Bootstrap 5 & Codemirror 6, among others, & remove jQuery
  • Rewrote website and many other core parts in TypeScript
  • Revamped unittests
• Other fixes:
  • Fix errors in instruction implementation

5.0.x:

• New functionality:
  • New assembler based on Rust
  • New architecture editor based on CodeMirror
• User Interface:
  • Several improvements and minor bugs fixed

4.1.x:

• New functionality:
  • CREATOR Remote Lab
  • Dockers for CREATOR
• User Interface:
  • Several improvements and minor bugs fixed

4.0.x:

• New functionality:
  • Integration with real hardware based on RISC-V (ESP32)
  • Possibility to choose the default working architecture
• User Interface:
  • Improved register file visualization
  • Performance improvements (e.g. program execution, data segment loading, etc.)
  • Updating external dependencies (fontawesome v6.2.1, jquery v3.6.3, lodash v4.17.15, and Apexchart)
  • Several minor bugs fixed

3.2.x:

• User Interface:
  • New link to the quick reference guide for instructions in PDF
  • The current assembly code can be shared as a simple link
• Modular design:
  • Simplified pseudo-instruction forms
  • Improved memory detail panel
  • Hardware counter updated to know the number of clock cycles consumed since the last reset

3.1.x:

• User Interface:
  • Example set added
  • The Instruction help width can now be configured from the configuration modal
  • Clarification on the initial CREATOR page
  • Better responsive behavior on different screen sizes
  • Power consumption added
• Modular design:
  • Interface based on Vue components for all UI elements in CREATOR
  • Simulated main memory reworked
  • Architecture improved

3.0.x:

• Several minor RISC-V improvements
• More modular design:
  • Initial user interface based on Vue components
  • Improved modular design on the execution engine
• Improved instruction definitions:
  • New CREATOR API for instruction definitions
  • Support for helping on checking Stack Calling Conventions
    • Checking saved registers on the stack are restored
    • Colored stack
    • SP and FP pointers are shown on the memory stack detail panel

2.1.x:

• RISC-V supported (Thanks to Lucas Elvira Martín @luck5941)
• CREATOR accessibility improved up to WCAG 2.0 (Level AAA)
• Command line version of CREATOR:
  • Help:
    • ./creator.sh -h
  • Example: creator compiles and executes the example2.txt, showing the final state:
    • ./creator.sh -a architecture/MIPS-32.json -s examples/MIPS/example2.txt
  • Example: save final state into 'output.txt' file:
    • ./creator.sh -a ./architecture/MIPS-32.json -s ./examples/MIPS/example2.txt -o min > output.txt
  • Example: compare the final state and the state saved on 'output.txt' file:
    • ./creator.sh -a ./architecture/MIPS-32.json -s ./examples/MIPS/example2.txt -o min -r output.txt
• Creator now accepts three GET values:
  • Preload the MIPS architecture:
    • https://creatorsim.github.io/creator/?architecture=MIPS-32
  • Preload example 'e3' from example set 'uc3m-ec':
    • https://creatorsim.github.io/creator/?example_set=uc3m-ec&example=e3
• Bootstrap-vue upgraded up to v2.15.0

Developing CREATOR

See docs/dev.md.