It would be nice if the editor itself could be set to make binary files directly, rather than only producing S-Records that then need another program's help to finally get a binary. As I'm using EASy68k for Genesis development rather than using the simulator or anything, it's a little annoying to have to do several clicks to get a ROM each time I want to test a change. :p

I've been giving this some thought but I can't come up with an easy way to do it (and I'm all about EASy ).

The problem is the memory map of the binary data. Currently the assembler writes the output to files as it assembles the program line by line. When the ORG directive is used to set the target address that address data is written to the SRecord (.S68) file as part of the data. With binary data no address information is stored.

Should the binary output file assume a starting address of 0? That would mean if the program started with an ORG $10000 all of the data from $0 to $10000 would still be written to the file. What should that data be, $00 or $FF?

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Prof. Kelly

Indeed it can get very messy, both in terms of the address the output should start, the rom size, and how bytes/words are split between odd/even ROMs, etc.

The most realistic way to deal with this is perhaps have the IDE run some post "link" script, batch file, or executable that exports ROM images in a suitable form.

I generally create a tool that takes the compiler/linker output (hex file, binary, or whatever), and does all the splitting and byte swapping in exactly the manner required for the target, including checksumming and other tasks that are difficult to automate in the assembler or are output dependent. Some of my target boards have two 8-bit flash, or one 16-bit EPROM, and others with two 16-bit EPROMs accessed 32-bit wide. The latter was for a high performance build where speed was traded from additional cost, quite substantial at the time the board was designed.

There are many nuances with old EPROM programmers, the files and formats they expect, and the behaviour of the devices themselves, that a lot of today's engineers have never experienced or had to deal with. Automating the process into a single step removes a lot of the guess work, and dependency on DOS tools than won't work in may Win7 and Win8 systems these days.

Perhaps another approach would be to allow some plug-in "fitters" that would allow users to create custom output tools for specific targets/devices?

The EASyBin utility currently supports conversion of SRecord files to binary data with selectable address ranges and byte boundary adjustment. The original request was for output to binary directly from the assembler. If no further request is made I will assume there is no longer any interest.

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Prof. Kelly

Would it be possible to add the ability to create a binary file of the assembled code without the need to loading it into EasyBin first. This could be done in a couple of ways.....

The preferred method for me would be for a binary (.bin) to be automatically created the same time as the S68 and L68 files after assembly is complete. This feature could be turned on or off in the Easy68K options menu.

The second method would be to place a button to create a binary on the popup after assembling (along side 'Execute' and 'Load L68'.

Regards, Raz