Eprom Hexxer - Eprom Binary Tool

[Nightshft]

Working with Eproms you sometimes need to do a byteswap or even wordwise dissect (split the binary in two binaries with odd and even words). Or when you read two Eproms sometimes you want to do a wordwise merge.

I wrote a (windows) tool to assist with that.

Features
--------

- byteswap in pairs of two
- byteswap in pairs of four
- split wordwise (aka dissect wordwise)
- split bytewise (aka dissect bytewise)
- merge wordwise
- merge bytewise
- merge binaries like needed for CD32
- show what you'r doing in the lower half of the window
- concatinate a copy of the buffer to the buffer ("double")
useful when you burn an Eprom with double the size of the data

- recognize if the binary consists of two identical halfs
- check if a kickrom file has the correct kick-checksum

So it can be handy for both, reading and writing Eproms.

Easy to use
-----------
- No install needed, it's portable
- Just drag&drop a binary file onto it
- modify it (there's a hex preview)
- save it
- done

I hope you guys find it useful. Enjoy...

UPDATES
=======

V1.28: 05-2021 Added Bytewise Merge & Split
V1.29: 10-2021 Added CD32 routine
V1.30: 02-2022 internal improvements
V1.31: 10-2022 add Open Button. Recognize byteswapped checksum too. Small improvements.


Note: It sometimes triggers false AV positives. I've done my best to avoid/solve that, but please understand that it still can happen sometimes and my spare time is limited, as this is a hobby project, thanks.

[snz138]

Thank you!

Just last weekend I worked with Eproms for the first time ever and wasted a lot of time until I realized that I needed to byteswap the binaries.
I had thought they were fine as I dumped them myself in a real Amiga... Later it hit me I used WinUAE's "transrom" command and obviously it had created made WinUAE compatible files instead of "Big Endians"

I actually managed to find a working byteswapper for Windows on some Nintendo forum, but your implementation looks much better and with more options!

[Nightshft]

Glad you like it

There are also some bonus functions that aren't so obvious at the beginning:

"Double" .. is a nice shortcut to copy the buffer contents after itself, f.e. if you burn a binary to an Eprom double its size.

To concat two binaries just drop one file, check "Add file to buffer" and drop the next file.

At reading a binary it will recognize C64 "cbm80" files and also files that consist of two identical parts.

If somebody knows the algorithm to
- certainly recognize a kick
- or calculate the kick checksum
this could be implemented, too.

Edit: Started to look how the kick checksum is calculated and it doesn't look difficult. Will look into it.

[supaduper]

Great stuff mate

[Nightshft]

Thank you supaduper.

The next version will be able to check files of certain size (256 or 512kB) for a valid kick checksum.

[lesta_smsc]

Certainly very handy app! It's been a long time since I wrote a flash chip back in my PIC programmer day! Great work

[rjd324]

danke schön!

[solarmon]

Thank you for making this tool - exactly what I was looking for!

For the split, it creates two files, named with suffix (by default) as "-dump-words1" and "-dump-words2".

Can you confirm which is LO and which is HI, I don't want to make any assumptions!

[Nightshft]

Glad you guys find it helpful.

About the split files:

filename_words1 are bytes 00,01,04,05,08,09
filename_words2 are bytes 02,03,06,07,0a,0b
(also see the Button Hint)

So I guess that makes words1..HI
and words2..LO

as HI is the high value word of each DWord (at the lower adresses),
and LO would be the low value word of each DWord (at the higher adress).

If someone can confirm I maybe would adjust the save-names.

Trivia:
I always found this a little confusing and when checking existing files IIRC I saw LO and HI used for both variants.

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by Nightshft

Glad you guys find it helpful.

About the split files:

filename_words1 are bytes 00,01,04,05,08,09
filename_words2 are bytes 02,03,06,07,0a,0b
(also see the Button Hint)

So I guess that makes words1..HI
and words2..LO

as HI is the high value word of each DWord (at the lower adresses),
and LO would be the low value word of each DWord (at the higher adress).

If someone can confirm I maybe would adjust the save-names.

Trivia:
I always found this a little confusing and when checking existing files IIRC I saw LO and HI used for both variants.

This is why I wanted to check. I'm new to doing all this ROM/EPROM stuff so I don't trust my judgments and assumptions!

It's even doubly confusing on the A1200, since the 'LO' Kickstart chip (labelled U6B) is physically above the 'HI' Kickstart chip (labelled U6A)!

[Nightshft]

According to what i just found it confirms that:

words1 is HI
words2 is LO

where HI means the high Words of the DWords (being at the lower adresses of the source file)
and LO means the low Words of the DWords (being at the higher adresses of the source file).

Big endian tries to fool us, doesn't it

I'll change the file naming accordingly.

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by Nightshft

According to what i just found it confirms that:

words1 is HI
words2 is LO

where HI means the high Words of the DWords (being at the lower adresses of the source file)
and LO means the low Words of the DWords (being at the higher adresses of the source file).

Big endian tries to fool us, doesn't it

I'll change the file naming accordingly.

Great!

Do you have a link to where you got this info?

I suppose I would have eventually worked it out - there are only two ways it could have been!

[Nightshft]

Originally Posted by solarmon

Great!

Do you have a link to where you got this info?

I read out my original A1200 Kickstart roms. The rom called HI sits at U6A and LO sits at U6B.

I suppose I would have eventually worked it out - there are only two ways it could have been!

True

[solarmon]

Originally Posted by Nightshft

I read out my original A1200 Kickstart roms. The rom called HI sits at U6A and LO sits at U6B.

Oh, you mean you dumped them from the ROM chips individually? I suppose I could have done that too and compared.

Thanks for checking and confirming!

[1NOM155]

Thank you Nightshft for your software

[Nightshft]

Glad you like it!

New version EpromHexxer V1.27 released.
EpromHexxer now can check Kickrom checksums.
You find the new version attached to the first post.

History:
V1.27 21-4-2021
Now checks Amiga Kickrom checksum for files with 256 or 512kB size
Now checks Amiga Kickrom Filesize Value
Hexview now also can show binary
Renamed split files when saving to HI and LO
small internal improvements

Enjoy...

[RoC]

Thanks for the update!

This has been my rom tool for a while: it works like a champ

[Nightshft]

Happy to hear that

@solarmon, 1Nom155, rjd324, lesta, superduper, snz: You'r welcome, glad you like it

[johnnybarker]

Oh, I'm going to try it too. Looks like a nice clean interface and easy to use which is what I like! Many thanks.

[aliga56]

Hello
Good Job

"Eprom Hexxer" together with "amitools" work very well

Thanks