Here are the expected run times for the flash dump2bin operation of dumping the
entire flash content of a Calypso GSM device:

Dump of 4 MiB flash (e.g., Openmoko GTA01/02 or Mot C139/140) at 115200 baud:
12m53s

The same 4 MiB flash dump at 812500 baud: 1m50s

Dump of 8 MiB flash (e.g., Mot C155/156) at 812500 baud: 3m40s

Because of the architecture of fc-loadtool and its loadagent back-end, the run
time of a flash dump operation depends only on the serial baud rate and the
size of the flash area to be dumped; it should not depend on the USB-serial
adapter type or any host system properties, as long as the host system and
serial adapter combination supports the desired baud rate.  In contrast, flash
programming and fc-xram loading operations are quite different in that their
run times do depend on the host system and USB-serial adapter or other serial
port hardware - this host system dependency exists because of the way these
operations are implemented in our architecture.

[To be continued]