Mips instruction set

[Jan Hönig]

Hello,
I am a cs student and we make our own mips processor for learning purposes.
However, i would like if my cpu could ( at least theoreticly) run
debian-mips. In the installation-how-to are some processors or boards
listed which are suported. On the wiki page of linux-mips, even the R2000
is listed as suported. Is it possible to stick with the MIPS1 Instruction
set, which is stated as legacy set on wikipedia, or do i have to implement
the newer sets?
Regards
Jan