Not quite. A large stack of plates differs from an OS stack in a few very important details, the most important of which is that you can read values from deeper in the stack in the OS stack, while accessing a plate in a plate stack is impossible without taking off all the plates above. That more closely resembles the stack of a stack-based language, such as the theoretical Java Virtual Machine, or the Flash ActionScript execution context.

Besides, the OP didn't ask about the theory behind LIFO, but about some details of the MIPS stack implementation.