Serialboot is a commandline download utility for the OpenBLT bootloader that supports firmware update via the PC's serial port. It was written in C and supports both Linux and MS Windows.

Serialboot is fully functional and comes with full source code, yet it was developed primarily for demonstration and reference purposes. It is ideal:

• As a foundation for developers that would like to create their own OpenBLT download utility program in C/C++.
• For users of the OpenBLT bootloader running Linux on their PC.
• For users that prefer a commandline download utility over one with a graphical user interface such as Microboot.

The preconditions to using Serialboot are: (1) Your microcontroller system runs the OpenBLT bootloader configured for serial communication. This is typically the default configuration of the demo bootloaders (BOOT_COM_UART_ENABLE is set to 1 in file “blt_conf.h”). (2) Your microcontroller system is connected to your PC's serial port, or through a RS232-USB adapter that is more common nowadays.

When you call the Serialboot utility from the command prompt, it expects 3 command line options:

-d[device] Through this option the serial communication device is selected. On MS Windows platform this is typically something like COM4 and on Linux platforms /dev/ttyS3, depending on the PC's physical serial communication port that the microcontroller system is connected to.

-b[baudrate] This option is for specifying the serial communication speed in bits/sec. It should be set to the same value as the configuration of the OpenBLT bootloader (BOOT_COM_UART_BAUDRATE in file “blt_conf.h”).

[s-record file] As a last option the name of the firmware file is specified. Serialboot supports firmware files in the Motorola S-record format.