His spelunking through the binary shows "uImage" which is the U-Boot[0] header/wrapper for a kernel image. The mkimage[1] utility will show what is in the heade

His spelunking through the binary shows "uImage" which is the U-Boot[0] header/wrapper for a kernel image. The mkimage[1] utility will show what is in the header and give direct information on how to dissect it. A very large number of systems that run on architectures other than x86 use U-Boot to boot their embedded OS, typically linux. U-Boot also has extensive command line utilities that can be used to explore the hardware and software. The console is often available as TTL-level signals on an unpopulated connector. A little soldering and USB/TTL-level serial converter[2] results in a console interface. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_U-Boot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_U-Boot [1] http://linux.die.net/man/1/mkimage http://linux.die.net/man/1/mkimage [2] Example: https://www.adafruit.com/products/70 https://www.adafruit.com/products/70