I have the following code of assembly language and I need to make a timer in each quiz question. If the user doesn't respond in less than 10 seconds then the program shows the Time's up message and finish. The timer is working fine but the problem is that during those 10 seconds, it doesn't allow me to type anything so I can't answer the questions. I'm kinda new to this so I'm not seeing the problem
.data
welcomeMsg: .asciiz "Welcome to the Quiz Game!\nPlease choose a subject to play:\n1. Math\n2. English\n3. History\n4. Soccer Sport\n"
chooseMsg: .asciiz "Enter your choice (1 for Math, 2 for English, 3 for History, 4 for Soccer Sport): "
invalidChoiceMsg: .asciiz "Invalid choice. Please enter a number between 1 and 4.\n"
mathWelcomeMsg: .asciiz "You chose Math! Let's solve some equations.\n"
englishWelcomeMsg: .asciiz "You chose English! Let's work on some exercises.\n"
historyWelcomeMsg: .asciiz "You chose History! Let's dive into the past.\n"
soccerWelcomeMsg: .asciiz "You chose Soccer Sport! Let's test your knowledge of football.\n"
questionMath: .asciiz "What is 5 + 3?\n"
answerMath: .asciiz "8\n"
questionEnglish: .asciiz "Correct the following sentence: 'He go to school every day.'\n"
answerEnglish: .asciiz "He goes to school every day."
questionHistory: .asciiz "In which year did the American Civil War end?\n"
answerHistory: .word 1865
questionSoccer: .asciiz "Who is known as the 'King of Football'?\n"
answerSoccer: .asciiz "Pele\n"
userInputBuffer: .space 100
positiveFeedback: .asciiz "Correct answer! You earned 20 points.\n"
incorrectFeedback: .asciiz "Incorrect answer. The correct answer is "
incorrectFeedbackEnd: .asciiz ".\n"
timeUpMsg: .asciiz "Time's up! Please try again.\n"
.text
.globl main
main:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, welcomeMsg
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, chooseMsg
syscall
li $v0, 5
syscall
move $t0, $v0
li $t1, 1
li $t2, 2
li $t3, 3
li $t4, 4
beq $t0, $t1, math_quiz
beq $t0, $t2, english_quiz
beq $t0, $t3, history_quiz
beq $t0, $t4, soccer_quiz
li $v0, 4
la $a0, invalidChoiceMsg
syscall
j main
math_quiz:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, mathWelcomeMsg
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, questionMath
syscall
# Start the timer
li $a0, 15
jal timer_start
# Get user input
li $v0, 8
la $a0, userInputBuffer
li $a1, 100
syscall
# Compare answer
la $a0, userInputBuffer
la $a1, answerMath
jal strcmp
beq $v0, $zero, correct_answer_math
j incorrect_answer_math
correct_answer_math:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, positiveFeedback
syscall
j finish
incorrect_answer_math:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedback
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, answerMath
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedbackEnd
syscall
j finish
english_quiz:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, englishWelcomeMsg
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, questionEnglish
syscall
# Start the timer
li $a0, 15
jal timer_start
# Get user input
li $v0, 8
la $a0, userInputBuffer
li $a1, 100
syscall
# Compare answer
la $a0, userInputBuffer
la $a1, answerEnglish
jal strcmp
beq $v0, $zero, correct_answer_english
j incorrect_answer_english
correct_answer_english:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, positiveFeedback
syscall
j finish
incorrect_answer_english:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedback
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, answerEnglish
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedbackEnd
syscall
j finish
history_quiz:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, historyWelcomeMsg
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, questionHistory
syscall
# Start the timer
li $a0, 15
jal timer_start
# Get user input as an integer (year)
li $v0, 5
syscall
move $t5, $v0 # Store user input in $t5
# Load correct answer
lw $t6, answerHistory
# Compare answer
bne $t5, $t6, incorrect_answer_history
j correct_answer_history
correct_answer_history:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, positiveFeedback
syscall
j finish
incorrect_answer_history:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedback
syscall
li $v0, 1
lw $a0, answerHistory
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedbackEnd
syscall
j finish
soccer_quiz:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, soccerWelcomeMsg
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, questionSoccer
syscall
# Start the timer
li $a0, 15
jal timer_start
# Get user input as a string
li $v0, 8
la $a0, userInputBuffer
li $a1, 100
syscall
# Compare answer
la $a0, userInputBuffer
la $a1, answerSoccer
jal strcmp
beq $v0, $zero, correct_answer_soccer
j incorrect_answer_soccer
correct_answer_soccer:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, positiveFeedback
syscall
j finish
incorrect_answer_soccer:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedback
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, answerSoccer
syscall
li $v0, 4
la $a0, incorrectFeedbackEnd
syscall
j finish
strcmp:
# Compare two null-terminated strings, returns 0 if equal, 1 otherwise
li $t1, 0
compare_loop:
lb $t2, 0($a0)
lb $t3, 0($a1)
beq $t2, $zero, compare_end
bne $t2, $t3, compare_fail
addi $a0, $a0, 1
addi $a1, $a1, 1
j compare_loop
compare_fail:
li $v0, 1
jr $ra
compare_end:
li $v0, 0
jr $ra
timer_start:
move $t1, $a0 # Store initial count in $t1
timer_loop:
blez $t1, timer_end # Exit loop if count is zero or less
# Simulate a 1-second delay
li $t0, 0
li $t2, 1000000 # Adjust based on the speed of your MIPS environment
delay_loop:
addi $t0, $t0, 1
bne $t0, $t2, delay_loop
subi $t1, $t1, 1 # Decrement timer
j timer_loop # Repeat timer
timer_end:
li $v0, 4
la $a0, timeUpMsg
syscall
j finish # Jump to finish the program
finish:
li $v0, 10 # Exit program
syscall
The expectations were that for every quiz question, the user has 10 seconds to respond, if he doesn't it has to show a Time's up message but the problem is that it isn't allowing the user to type anything
Timers and I/O are things that are done by the OS and the OS support routines, not by a (user-level) program. That means you need to call a syscall that will get input with a timeout, and if your OS support does not provide that, there's no way to do it without changing your OS.
If your OS here is SPIM or MARS (simulator), there is no way of doing this -- these systems do not provide any way of timing out an input or having much in the way of a timers at all. The closest you can do (on MARS -- there's no time of any kind on SPIM) is to use syscall 30 -- this will get you the current time, so you can do something like:
but there's no way to "interrupt" the wait for input after some amount of time.