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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBliC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"> <title>xLink</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="./style.css"> </head> <body> <h1>xLink Documentation</h1> <h2>Table of Contents</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#history"> History</a> <li><a href="#usage"> Usage</a> <li><a href="#linkfile"> The Linkfile</a> <li><a href="#operationtg"> Operation for Gameboy</a> <li><a href="#smallmode"> Operation for Gameboy small mode</a> <li><a href="#psion2"> Operation for Psion2 relocatable modules</a> </ul> <hr> <h2 id="history">History</h2> <table> <caption>The history of xLink</caption> <thead> <tr> <th scope="col">Version</th> <th scope="col">Dated</th> <th scope="col">Release notes</th> </tr> </thead> <tr> <td>1.0</td> <td>1 Oct. 96</td> <td>First release (RGBDS)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1.01</td> <td>3 Dec. 96</td> <td> <ul> <li>BANK() didn't work. Fixed.</li> <li>Sections were quite often output in the wrong order. Fixed.</li> </ul> </tr> <tr> <td>1.02</td> <td>12 Feb. 97</td> <td><a href="#usage">-s switch and mapfile option</A> added</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1.03</td> <td>23 Mar. 97</td> <td> <ul> <li><a href="#usage">Mapfile</A> now shows BSS, VRAM and HRAM areas</li> <li>There was a bug regarding <a href="#operation">fixed HOME sections.</a> </ul></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1.04</td> <td>03 July 1997</td> <td>First ASMotor release. Supports big-endian CPUs as well. <a href="#usage">Usage</a> changed to allow for different output fileformats</td> </tr> <tr> <td>1.05</td> <td>20 July 1997</td> <td> <ul> <li>We can now do range checking on intermediate results in an expression. This is necessary to support different types of CPUs.</li> <li>RGBLink DIDN’T know about the special PC symbol "@" so if you used it more than once per sourcefile in an expression the linker had to resolve, things would go horribly wrong.</li> </ul> </td> <tr> <td>1.06</td> <td>21 September 1997</td> <td><ul><li>Smart linking and library support added <li>Program renamed to xLink </ul> </td> </table> <h2 id="usage">Usage</h2> <pre> xlink [options] linkfile</pre> <p>Options are preceded by a hyphen (-) and go as follows: <pre> h : Short help text m<b>mapfile</b> : Write a mapfile t : Output target: tg : Gameboy <a href="#operationtg">ROM image</a> (default) ts : Gameboy <a href="#smallmode">Small mode (32kB)</a> ROM image tp : <a href="#psion2">Psion2</a> relocatable module z<b>HX</b> : Set the byte value (hex format) used for uninitialised data (default is ? for random) </pre> <h2 id="linkfile">The Linkfile</h2> <p>A linkfile is used to tell <B>xLink</B> which objects to include and what the outputname should be. It is in plain ASCII-format. <pre> # Linkfile for foobar.gb [Objects] foo.obj bar.obj [Libraries] mylib.lib [Output] foobar.gb</pre> <p>A line starting with # is ignored. <p>If you use libraries they will only be included if one of the objects actually reference them. This works on a SECTION level and not on a module level. This means that when you write libraries you can put each subroutine in its own SECTION so only the relevant bits are included. <h2 id="operationtg">Operation for Gameboy (-tg)</h2> <p><a href="asm.htm#sections">Sections</a> created with <b>ROM0</b> in the assembler are placed in the GB bank #0 (the fixed bank $0000-$3FFF) in the order they are loaded from the objectfiles specified in the linkfile. So you want the first file in the linkfile to contain your header. <b>ROMX</b> sections are placed in <em>any bank other than #0</em>. This means you have absolutely <em>no</em> control over which sections goes where. This insures minimal slack (unused bytes) at the end of each bank in the image. <p>Currently the linker doesn't calculate the GB checksums. You must use <a href="fix.htm">RGBFix</a> to do this. <h3 id="smallmode">Operation for Gameboy small mode (-ts)</h3> <p>Small mode forces all <b>ROMX</b> sections to be of type <b>ROM0</b> and increases the <b>ROM0</b> section size from 16kB to 32kB. This also means that <b>ROM0/ROMX</b> sections are written to the final image in the order you have specified on the command line. <p>Currently the linker doesn't calculate the GB checksums. You must use <a href="fix.htm">RGBFix</a> to do this. <hr> <p>Last updated 08 October 1997 by <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Carsten Sorensen</a></p> </body> </html>