Dear Robert,
in message Pine.LNX.4.60.0408291024150.3835@localhost.localdomain you wrote:
ok, i didn't mean to start this tendentious a thread, sorry. what i was after was a way to "test drive" u-boot without committing it to flash, but there might be a simple way around this for me.
No, there isn't.
I don't understand why this seems to be so hard to believe:
In general, THERE IS NO WAY to test the final U-Boot image without burning it to the correct location in flash (i. e. such that it gets started when the processor comes up out of reset).
Get yourself a BDI2000, learn how to erase and program flash memory, and just burn the image to flash; there is ZERO risk involved with this. Actually it's the most natural way top develop and test this type of software.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk