Tool: makerom

Tool: makerom

makerom allows for the creation of N64 roms by taking in many relocatable object files and a specification file spec describing their RAM and ROM locations. makerom is tailored for use with the bootcode provided in pseultra/boot, but may be easily forked to fit with the Nintendo bootcode.

Installation

Simply make in the pseultra/makerom directory.

Usage

To use makerom, invoke the makerom executable with the following arguments:

• A specification file describing the layout of the ROM (explained below)
• The path to the MIPS ld executable
• The bootcode file to be used. This should be the boot file from pseultra/boot
• The output file in which to put the ROMM at which the segment starts or ends

The specification file has the following format:

<boot segment name>
    <object file to include in segment>
    <object file to include in segment>
    <object file to include in segment>
;
<segment name>
    <object file to include in segment>
    <object file to include in segment>
;
<segment name>
    <object file to include in segment>

The first segment in the specfile is always the boot segment, and so the main boot function should be located in this segment. To end a segment, use a semicolon. At the end of the file, however, do not include a semicolon.

The makerom tool provides 6 symbols which can be externed to provide information on the segment:

• _<segmentName>SegmentRom(Start/End), a pointer to the location in ROM at which the segment starts or ends
• _<segmentName>SegmentText(Start/End), a pointer to the location in RAM at which the text section is expected to start or end. This includes the .data section of the object files
• _<segmentName>SegmentBss(Start/End), a pointer to the location in RAM where the BSS section is expected to start or end.

The makerom tool creates 3 files:

• A link.ld linker script used to link all objects together into one ELF file
• A rom.elf ELF file which is the result of invoking ld with link.ld
• The output file whose filename is specified in the command line arguments, which is a bootable N64 ROM

Tests

There are currently no tests available.

Todo

• Allow for the inclusion of relocatable overlays.