How to manipulate MIPS code and use stack pointers?

Question

So, I recently made a code to count the number of binary 1's in C-code and in MIPS code. I did so in C by using a remainder value and increment a count_one variable. In MIPS, I did the same program but I shifted the bytes of the number until it counted all of the 1's. Howver, I want to try to learn how to use pointers but I can not seem to grasp the concept. My MIPS code is as follows:

.data
  prompt: .asciiz "Enter a integer: "

.text
  li $v0,4
  la $a0, prompt
  syscall

  li $v0,5
  syscall
  move $s0,$v0
  j count

count:
  beq $s0,0, exit
  andi $t0,$s0,1
  add $t1,$t1,$t0
  srl $s0,$s0,1
  j count

exit:
  move $a0,$t1
  la $v0,1
  syscall
  li $v0,10
  syscall

I get this complete MIPS code but I am unsure on how pointers completely work in MIPS and after reading I still don't understand. Any advice on how to implement pointers?

Answer 1

Most common the command determines the mind of data.

For example in pseudo code

inc $a0

this command increment data in register $a0 work with it as with number

lw $s1, 0($a0)

this command load data from memory pointed by register $a0 work with it as with pointer