[Grand Total]

Yes the bin is only used in the preparing of the sdcard, you wont actually see it on it.
Try formatting in FAT16 and if that doesnt work then try shorting pins.
Also try Bootcard
Then if all else fails you'll have to purchase a usb-TTL serial cable

Well, my box is finally back in the land of the living. I tried FAT16 and no dice. I had trouble determining which two pins to short, so decided to read some more and experiment a bit more.

It turns out that the .bin file does need to be on the SD card, and you can't see it. I ended up creating a working card by using a Linux machine to copy the uboot file to the card then created a (FAT32) partition on the card after the uboot file into which I copied the rest of the files.

I am getting a little old and confused and somehow managed to end up making my SD card with a Linux set of files, so got a bit of a shock when my box sprang back to life with MX Linux and XBMC. Fortunately this was the result that I was trying to achieve when I "bricked" my box in the first place.

Thank you very much for answering my newbie question. Believe it or not it did help me a lot by pointing me in the direction of Bootcard which I was able to examine and which set me off on a slightly different path.