Contents of This Guide

• Chapter 1 (this chapter), "N32 ABI Overview"

  • "What is N32?," which describes the n32 ABI and compares it with the other MIPS ABIs.

  • "Why We Need a New ABI," which lists the reasons why we need a new ABI.

  • "N32 Migration Requirements," which describes what is required of both SGI and its customers to use the n32 ABI.

• Chapter 2, "Calling Convention Implementations"

• Chapter 3, "N32 Compatibility, Porting, and Assembly Language Programming Issues"

• Chapter 4, "N32 Examples and Case Studies"

o32

The current 32-bit ABI generated by the ucode compiler, that is, 32-bit compilers prior to IRIX 6.1 operating system.

n32

The new 32-bit ABI generated by the MIPSpro 64-bit compiler.

n64

The new 64-bit ABI generated by the MIPSpro 64-bit compiler.