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raspberrypi/aarch64/bootloader07/README
2016-03-15 01:23:52 -04:00

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See the top level README file for more information on documentation
and how to run these programs.
This is a very simple bootloader. Instead of the sd dance (see
top level README), this makes life a bit simpler and greatly reduces
physical wear and tear on the sd card socket. Do the sd card dance one
more time with this kernel.img. Get some sort of serial solution to
connect a dumb termial program with the ability to download raw/ascii
files.
bootloader01 was .hex based, this one is also .hex based but a
different way to parse it. bootloader02 through bootloader06
expect binary files, a binary image of the memory starting at
address 0x8000. I intend to release bootloader08 at the same time
and it will be .bin based but have the go feature.
This bootloader07 parses intel hex formatted files. Look that up at
wikipedia, it is very simple and historically widely used for bare
metal embedded work. (S record is another format like intel hex but
of course motorola had to have their own. Intel hex and Motorola S-
record). I felt like doing another state machine and honestly had
forgotten I did one before in bootloader01. This bootloader does
not make any of the others obsolete, it was just a fun exercise.
The thing that annoyed me the most about my bootloader is that
I use minicom and minicom spawns a separate program to do the file
transfers, xmodem, ascii, kermit, etc, and there is a delay and
a loss of data when the spawned program exits and minicom returns.
The solution is that you hit the g key when you want the program
to start so you are basically back in the terminal at that point.
I normally do not deliver binaries. In this case I have included all
of the build files so that you can at least get started without having
to build the bootloader. This is specifically for the raspberry pi 3,
compiled for aarch64.
As of this writing for this to work you must in addition to the other
files (bootcode.bin, start.elf, the kernel7.img from here) and a
config.txt containing
arm_control=0x200
kernel_old=1
The bit set in arm_control indicates boot 64 bit not 32 bit.
kernel_old tells the bootloader to not provide any boot code for the
ARM (as of this writing that code is 32 bit instructions so wont work).
This means we have to build our program for address 0x0000 not address
0x8000 like we would normally. This also means we have to deal with
the other four cores. When all the affinity bits are zero in the
MPIDR_EL1 register, that is the master core. For now I put the other
cores in an infinite loop.