NAME

       srec_msbin - Windows CE Binary Image Data Format

DESCRIPTION

       This  format  is  the  output  of the Microsoft WinCE Platform Builder.  This is a binary (non‐text) file
       format.  File names in this format typically (ambiguously) use the .bin suffix.

   File Format
       Files in this format start with a header record.

       Then comes the data itself, organized into records.

       The file finishes with an execution start address record.  This is mandatory.

   File Header Record
       Data in this format start with an optional header containing the magic “B000FF\n”, followed by the  image
       start  (four  bytes, little endian) address and the span of the image (highest address - lowest address +
       1) (four bytes, little endian).  The file header does not have a checksum; it is therefore possible  that
       a corrupt file header will go undetected.
       ┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
       │ Magic      │ Least      │ Greatest   │
       │ “B000FF\n” │ Address    │ Address    │
       │ (7 bytes)  │ (4 bytes)  │ (4 bytes)  │
       └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
       There is no provision for a file comment of any kind.

   Data Record
       Each  record consists of a record start address (four bytes, little endian), a record length (four bytes,
       little endian), a record checksum (four bytes, little endian), followed by the  record  data.   The  data
       part of each record is raw byte values, no encoding.
       ┌───────────┬───────────┬───────────┬───────────┐
       │ Start     │ Length    │ Checksum  │   Data    │
       │ address   │ (4 bytes) │ (4 bytes) │           │
       │ (4 bytes) │           │           │           │
       └───────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────┘

       The checksum is calculated by a simple sum of unsigned bytes into a 32‐bit accumulator.

       The  12  record  header  bytes  are not included in the record checksums; it is therefore possible that a
       corrupt record header will go undetected.

       It is not possible to place data at address zero with this format.  Address zero is reserved for  use  by
       the execution start address record.

       There is effectively no limit on the length of a record (2^32-1).  It is not uncommon for a MsBin file to
       contain records with sizes in the tens of megabytes.

   Execution Start Address Record
       Last  comes  a  special  record  with  the  record address set to zero and record length set to the image
       execution start address.  According to specification the record describing the  execution  start  address
       must be always present, and must always be the last record in the file.
       ┌───────────┬───────────┬───────────┐
       │ Zero      │ Start     │ Checksum  │
       │ (4 bytes) │ Address   │ = 0       │
       │           │ (4 bytes) │ (4 bytes) │
       └───────────┴───────────┴───────────┘

   Commentary
       The  MsBin  files  produced  by  SRecord  are  valid  and  can be successfully parsed by the command line
       utilities viewbin and cvrtbin (part of Windows CE platform).

       For a MsBin file to be usable in Microsoft WinCE Platform Builder it has to contain a TOC meta‐structure.
       This is data embedded in the file by Microsoft WinCE Platform Builder itself.

       The opposite conversion - from MsBin - comes in handy when analyzing a MsBin file (i.e. a WinCE image).

   Size Multiplier
       In general, binary data will expand in sized by approximately 1.0 times (approaching asymptotically  from
       above)  when  represented with this format, as the 15‐byte file header is averaged over the data content.
       Holes in the data will also increase the size.

SOURCE

       http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms924510.aspx

COPYRIGHT

       srec_cat version 1.64
       Copyright (C) 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010,  2011,  2012,
       2013, 2014 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

Reference Manual                                     SRecord                                       srec_msbin(5)