The second pass concluded the 168 B tricks->asm gap was per-call ABI
cost. Most of it was structure. Rebuilt around the oracle's own shape —
argless noinline primitives over a whole-loader call-saved register
protocol (g_addr in Y, count r16, window r7, direction latch r6), a
top-down erase_below whose loop tests against zero and hands callers
g_addr = 0 for free, bounded rx everywhere (a silent host unwinds to
the app from any state, as the oracle does), and a named tsb_app entry
that --pmem-wrap-around=32k relaxes to the wrapped rjmp:
tsb_asm 510 B in the 512 B section (oracle: 500), C++ except rx
and the page-store loop — the two routines whose remaining
cost is the calling convention itself (~30 asm lines, was
~280)
tsb_tricks 526 B, no assembly at all (was 666)
tsb_pure 836 B, still one readable function per command (was 842)
Every g_* update placement works around a GCC 16.1 wrong-code bug
(stores into global register variables deleted when only callees read
them — repro and rules in libavr dev/lessons.md). Also fixes two
latent hardware bugs all earlier tiers carried, masked by simavr's
zeroed register file: the crt-less entries never established
__zero_reg__ = 0, and the direction latch was read before written —
power-on registers are undefined.
All tiers full oracle feature parity, protocol tests green in both
libavr modes, .text byte-identical across modes.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
tricks 778->666: always_inline every single-call handler into the
[[noreturn]] reset entry (which pays no prologue, so their push/pop of
call-saved registers vanishes), walk the page pointer in Y (adiw, base
recovered as g_addr-page) instead of recomputing Z=base+offset, bring
the UART up in the two registers that are not already at their reset
value, and seed the activation counter as __uint24.
pure 896->842: TU-local internal linkage (proper hygiene, and it lets
the compiler inline the one-call handlers), a byte-wide activation
count, __uint24 timeout. Still one readable function per command.
asm unchanged at 498: its C++-expressible parts are already C++; the
core stays asm (the 666 B all-tricks tier is 168 B over — per-call ABI
tax, not a feature). All three cross-mode byte-identical, protocol green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
asm 502->498 B (below the oracle's 500): the stack bring-up moves to plain C++,
and a register is reserved for the config-page high byte instead of reloading it
at each app-flash-boundary compare. tricks 808->778 B: shared erase/rww helpers
plus the libavr half-duplex W1C fix. pure 950->896 B and no SRAM: streams
rx->SPM/EEPROM instead of staging a 128 B page buffer. All three keep full oracle
feature parity and stay byte-identical across modes; protocol tests (round-trip +
password + emergency erase) green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Both tiers gain the features the asm tier already carries — one-wire
half-duplex (via libavr's new .half_duplex), the config-page activation
timeout, and emergency erase (password \0 + double-confirm wipes flash,
EEPROM and the config page) — on top of the watchdog bail, password gate and
config/flash/EEPROM read-write they already had. pure stays idiomatic
(flash_table info block, one function per command) at 950 B; tricks keeps its
compiler trickery (call-saved global-register page walk, unified runtime-flag
paths pinned noinline/noclone, streaming stores, arithmetic command decode)
at 808 B. Both byte-identical across generated and reflect modes; the size
gradient across the three tiers is now 502 / 808 / 950 B.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Direct register access now reads through the named surface
(hw::mcusr::wdrf.test(), hw::ucsr0b::write(...)) instead of the string form,
matching how libavr itself is written. Zero-overhead: pure 740 B, tricks 658 B,
asm 508 B unchanged, all byte-identical across modes, protocol green.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The native-UART fixed-baud TinySafeBoot protocol, ported onto libavr as a
crt-free boot-section loader, in three variants that trade clarity for size:
tsb_pure 740 B idiomatic C++: SRAM page buffer, separate flash/EEPROM
leaves, shared framing; the polled `unused` guard posture.
tsb_tricks 658 B unified runtime-flag paths (noinline/noclone), call-saved
global-register page walk — attributes only, no asm.
tsb_asm 508 B streaming store + hand-rolled UART/SPM/EEPROM/erase loops;
fits the 512 B boot section (BOOTSZ=11). Trims the optional
password gate and WDT-reset bail — unreachable in C++ with
both (hand-asm is ~15 % denser). Tiers 1-2 keep them and
live in the 1 KB section they fit.
All three are .text byte-identical across libavr's generated and reflect modes.
The CMake build strips the leaked -O3 (a Release build is silently -O3, not the
-Os this loader is measured against) and gates each variant's size against its
section. A simavr harness (test/device.c + test/tsbtest.py) drives the real wire
protocol over a pty and flashes the device; the size and protocol tests run in
ctest. Verified byte-for-byte against the reference tsbloader_adv (C#/mono):
activate, read info, flash write + verify.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
