psout(1)

💖 psout — the manual page, but make it a group chat 💖

okay bestie so this is the page for psout, part of the Qualcomm Atheros Open Powerline Toolkit (manual section 1, iykyk). sit down, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get into it.

✨ NAME ✨

psout — Export PIB Prescalers. that's it, that's the name, and honestly? iconic. 👑

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

psout [options] file [>stdout]

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

so what does this lil cutie actually do? it exports the prescaler section of a PIB file as an amplitude map — and that map is formatted so you can feed it straight into program psin or into the Qualcomm Atheros Windows Device Manager. slay. 💅

here's the tea: prescalers live inside the PIB in binary format, but the amplitude map it spits out is text. that's the whole point — text means you can literally just open it in any ordinary text editor and change the values by hand. no cap. then program psin can import that amplitude map back into the original PIB file, or into a whole different PIB file if that's the vibe you're on. 🦋

this program is part of the Qualcomm Atheros Powerline Toolkit. if you want the overview and the installation instructions, go read the AMP man page. 🫶

✨ OPTIONS ✨

None. literally none. zero. the void. no flags, no switches, no nothing. it's giving minimalism. 🎀

✨ ARGUMENTS ✨

• file — the name of an Atheros Parameter Information Block (PIB) file. bestie, listen: this file is not modified. not even a little. by convention PIB files have a .pib extension, but this program does not enforce that convention, and it does not make any assumption based on filename or extension. what it will do is reject invalid PIB files, so don't try it. 😭 and heads up — only one filename is permitted on the command line. one. singular. don't be greedy. 🙈

✨ FILES ✨

an amplitude map is made of 1155 frequency-amplitude pairs. yes, 1155, that number is not a typo. ⭐

each pair is a decimal index plus a hexadecimal scaler:

• the index represents a frequency from 1.8 mhz through 30 mhz
• the scaler represents the amplitude attenuation applied at that frequency

and here's how frequency and attenuation are actually computed, keep these formulas close to your heart 💜:

frequency = 40.96 * (index + 74)

index = (frequency / 40.96) - 74

decibels = 20 * log10 (scaler / 256)

scaler = 256 * pow (decibels / 20)

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

okay so first example: this prints the prescaler section of the file abc.pib onto stdout as an amplitude map. the output here has been abbreviated to save space (it's long, bestie, it's 1155 lines of vibes). a single comment line identifies the prescaler source file. you can direct the output to a text file, edit it with a text editor, and read it into the same PIB file or a different one with program psin. 🌈

# psout abc.pib
# file: abc.pib
00000000 00000000
00000001 00000000
00000002 00000000
00000003 00000000
...
00000027 000000D0
00000028 000000D0
00000029 000000D1
00000030 000000D1
...
00000214 00000000
00000215 00000000
00000216 00000000
...
00001155 00000000

and the next one? it copies prescalers from file abc.pib to def.pib using a command line pipe. chef's kiss. 🔥

# psout abc.pib | psin def.pib

✨ DISCLAIMER ✨

okay this part is serious, so pay attention. 💀

PIB file structure and content is proprietary to Qualcomm Atheros, Ocala FL USA. consequently, public information is not available. Qualcomm Atheros reserves the right to modify PIB file structure or content in future firmware releases without any obligation to notify or compensate users of this program. fr fr.

also — and this is the big one — tampering with prescaler settings may violate national or international electro-magnetic emission standards and lead to fines or penalties. 😭 Qualcomm Atheros shall not be held responsible for any consequences of modifications made to prescaler sets provided to their customers.

so like… be careful. that's the whole message. 🫶

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

• psgraph(1)
• pskey(1)
• psin(1)

✨ CREDITS ✨

Charles Maier — thank you for your service, king 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie. this was open-plc-utils-0.0.3, from November 2013, and it's the psout(1) manual — go export some prescalers, you absolute main character. 💅✨🎀