srec_mips_flash.5(5)

💅 srec_mips_flash.5(5) — MIPS‐Flash file format ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to the srec_mips_flash page from the File Formats Manual, section 5 (srec_mips_flash.5(5)). It's giving very specific flash-file energy, and we are keeping every teeny detail, no cap. 🫶

🎀 NAME 🎀

srec_mips_flash — MIPS‐Flash file format

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The MIPS SDE tool chain has a convert program that is able to output this format. And ngl, the original author is literally like: “I have no idea what reads it, some kind of flash programmer I suppose.” 😭

🧚 Format 🧚

The file must start with !R to reset the state machine. White space appears to be ignored, except as it serves to separate tokens. ✨

Data is presented as 32-bit hexadecimal numbers, in the normal big-endian text number format. To write them to memory, you have to know if the target is big-endian or little-endian. for little endian targets, reverse the order of the bytes in this number. 🌀

The eight bytes following a > are a sort of comment. The SDE code reads like they are displayed in the flash programmer as a kind of progress indicator. 💬

The number following @ is a new address for the following data. 📍

Each segment must be erased before it can be written, this is done with the !E command. Each segment is assumed to be 128kB in size. 🧹

Special segments must be unlocked (with the !C command) and locked again (with the !S command). 🔐

Ngl, this file format contains no checksum mechanism. 🫠

🎛️ Command Line Options 🎛️

This format is specified using one of these two options:

• -Mips‐Flash‐Big_Endian — one of the two options that specifies this format.
• -Mips‐Flash‐Little_Endian — the other one of the two options that specifies this format.

The endian-ness must be specified on the command line, because there is nothing in the file contents to indicate the endian-ness of the data it contains. 💅

📏 Size Multiplier 📏

In general, binary data will expand in sized by approximately 2.3 times when represented with this format (worse if you use shorter lines). 📈

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

Here is an example MIPS‐Flash file. It contains the data “Hello, World” to be loaded at bytes address 0x0000 (but remember, the file contents are always multiples of four bytes). 🎀

!R
>00000xxx @00000000 !E
@00000000
>00000000
48656C6C 6F2C2057 6F726C64 210A0000
>#DL_DONE
>FINISHED

💖 COPYRIGHT 💖

srec_cat version 1.65
Copyright (C) 1998... Peter Miller

The srec_cat program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the srec_cat -VERSion License command. This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details use the srec_cat -VERSion License command. 🫶

👑 MAINTAINER 👑

• Scott Finneran — E-Mail: scottfinneran@yahoo.com.au
• Peter Miller — E-Mail: pmiller@opensource.org.au

💖 COPYRIGHT (round two — yes, the original repeats it) 💖

srec_cat version 1.65
Copyright (C) 1998... Peter Miller

The srec_cat program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use the srec_cat -VERSion License command. This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions; for details use the srec_cat -VERSion License command. 💅

👑 MAINTAINER (round two — still here) 👑

• Scott Finneran — E-Mail: scottfinneran@yahoo.com.au
• Peter Miller — E-Mail: pmiller@opensource.org.au

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okay that's the whole thing, bestie 🫶. Cute sign-off: this page sits in the Reference Manual / SRecord orbit, with the manual-page name srec_mips_flash.5(5). The footer doesn't give a date, so we're not inventing one — just keeping the source/version vibe and all the details intact. 💜