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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!kitty!larry
From: larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.cpm
Subject: Re: looking for information on Intel Hex file format
Message-ID: <1321@kitty.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Oct-86 21:28:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: kitty.1321
Posted: Wed Oct  8 21:28:58 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Oct-86 05:34:44 EDT
References: <753@ur-tut.UUCP>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 26
Keywords: Intel hex format opcode
Summary: And the format is...
Xref: mnetor net.micro:6220 net.micro.cpm:2456

In article <753@ur-tut.UUCP>, tuba@ur-tut.UUCP (Jon Krueger) writes:
> 
> I have a file in Intel Hex format.  This is a hex representation of a binary
> file.  I need to decode it and, ultimately, load it into memory.  Does
> anyone know how to read these files?  How to interpret the different fields?

	The start of record character is a colon [:].  This is followed by a
2-digit (in HEX) byte count that establishes the record length.  This is
followed by a 4-digit loading address.  This is followed by a 2-digit record
type, for which ``00'' denotes a data record, and ``01'' denotes end-of-file 
record.  The next field consists of data in HEX, with two characters per
byte.  The last field is a 2-digit HEX field which is a checksum, based upon
the 2's complement of the binary sum of all the the bytes in the record.
	For _contiguously_ loaded memory data, the record length is generally
always 16 bytes of data, with the last record often being less than 16 bytes.
If the first loading address does not begin on a ``0'' boundary, then the
first record may be adjusted to be less than 16 bytes so that all subsequent
records begin on boundaries ending in ``0''.  There is no requirement for
this boundary adjustment other than to improve human readability of the
HEX file.  Since there are no spaces in the hex file, human readability is
a bitch - but one gets used to it after a while...

==>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
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