diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 442ab24..2fd355d 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -311,11 +311,11 @@ If your candidate PRs have elements of these it doesn't mean they won't get merg
 
 ## unsorted todos
 
-- make it easier to add a new dataset with not too much pain
-- should calculate freq_cis online in the script run.c instead of loading them
-- int4/8 quantization
-- export the model in a more sensible output format with a proper header, etc.
+- delete the export_meta_llama_bin.py and export_meta_llama_hf_bin.py files. instead, import both of these into a proper model.py Transformer instance, and then export using the export script as usual.
+- migrate the code to work with the new versions export and deprecate the original .bin files
 - support Llama 2 7B Chat models and tune run.c to Chat UI/UX
+- make it easier to add a new dataset with not too much pain
+- int8 quantization
 - llama2.cu investigate and merge
 - (LoRA) finetuning and export of Llama 2 models
 
diff --git a/export.py b/export.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ffcb506
--- /dev/null
+++ b/export.py
@@ -0,0 +1,287 @@
+"""
+This script has functions and utilties for model export.
+Basically, we have a bunch of versions of the model, and we
+want to export them to .bin files to be read from and inferenced in C.
+
+Among the "input" versions of PyTorch files/models:
+- Official Llama 2 weights released by Meta
+- Huggingface weights available on the hub
+- llama2.c (this repo) trained models
+
+Among the "output" versions of .bin files:
+- v0: Legacy files of the original llama2.c repo (will eventually be DEPRECATED)
+- v1-vN: Improved .bin files with a proper header, cache alignment, etc.
+
+This script aspires to provide all of these conversions.
+"""
+import struct
+import argparse
+import torch
+import numpy as np
+
+from model import ModelArgs, Transformer
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# common utilities
+
+def serialize_fp32(file, tensor):
+    """ writes one fp32 tensor to file that is open in wb mode """
+    d = tensor.detach().cpu().view(-1).numpy().astype(np.float32)
+    b = struct.pack(f'{len(d)}f', *d)
+    file.write(b)
+
+def serialize_int8(file, tensor):
+    """ writes one int8 tensor to file that is open in wb mode """
+    d = tensor.detach().cpu().view(-1).numpy().astype(np.int8)
+    b = struct.pack(f'{len(d)}b', *d)
+    file.write(b)
+
+def quantize_q80(w, group_size):
+    """
+    takes a tensor and returns the Q8_0 quantized version
+    i.e. symmetric quantization into int8, range [-127,127]
+    """
+    assert w.numel() % group_size == 0
+    ori_shape = w.shape
+    w = w.float() # convert to float32
+    w = w.reshape(-1, group_size)
+    # find the max in each group
+    wmax = torch.abs(w).max(dim=1).values
+    # calculate the scaling factor such that float = quant * scale
+    scale = wmax / 127.0
+    # scale into range [-127, 127]
+    quant = w / scale[:,None]
+    # round to nearest integer
+    int8val = torch.round(quant).to(torch.int8)
+    # dequantize by rescaling
+    fp32val = (int8val.float() * scale[:,None]).view(-1)
+    fp32valr = fp32val.reshape(-1, group_size)
+    # calculate the max error in each group
+    err = torch.abs(fp32valr - w).max(dim=1).values
+    # find the max error across all groups
+    maxerr = err.max().item()
+    return int8val, scale, maxerr
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# legacy
+
+def legacy_export(model, filepath):
+    """ Original export of llama2.c bin files, i.e. version v0 """
+    out_file = open(filepath, 'wb')
+
+    # first write out the header
+    hidden_dim = model.layers[0].feed_forward.w1.weight.shape[0]
+    p = model.params
+    n_kv_heads = p.n_heads if p.n_kv_heads is None else p.n_kv_heads
+    header = struct.pack('iiiiiii', p.dim, hidden_dim, p.n_layers, p.n_heads,
+                                    n_kv_heads, p.vocab_size, p.max_seq_len)
+    out_file.write(header)
+
+    # next write out the embedding weights
+    serialize_fp32(out_file, model.tok_embeddings.weight)
+
+    # now all the layers
+    # attention weights
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention_norm.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention.wq.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention.wk.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention.wv.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention.wo.weight)
+    # ffn weights
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.ffn_norm.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.feed_forward.w1.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.feed_forward.w2.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.feed_forward.w3.weight)
+    # final rmsnorm
+    serialize_fp32(out_file, model.norm.weight)
+    # note: no need to write final classifier weights due to weight sharing
+    # freqs_cis
+    serialize_fp32(out_file, model.freqs_cos[:p.max_seq_len])
+    serialize_fp32(out_file, model.freqs_sin[:p.max_seq_len])
+
+    # write to binary file
+    out_file.close()
+    print(f"wrote {filepath}")
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# new version
+
+def version1_export(model, filepath):
+    """
+    Export the model weights in full float32 .bin file to be read from C.
+    This is same as legacy_export, but with a proper header.
+    """
+    version = 1
+
+    out_file = open(filepath, 'wb')
+    # first write out the header. the header will be 256 bytes
+    # 1) write magic, which will be uint32 of "ak42" in ASCII
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('I', 0x616b3432))
+    # 2) write version, which will be int
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('i', version))
+    # 3) write the params, which will be 7 ints
+    p = model.params
+    hidden_dim = model.layers[0].feed_forward.w1.weight.shape[0]
+    n_kv_heads = p.n_heads if p.n_kv_heads is None else p.n_kv_heads
+    header = struct.pack('iiiiiii', p.dim, hidden_dim, p.n_layers, p.n_heads,
+                                    n_kv_heads, p.vocab_size, p.max_seq_len)
+    out_file.write(header)
+    # 4) write some other flags
+    shared_classifier = 1 # we do share a classifier, write flag as a byte
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('B', shared_classifier))
+    pad = 256 - out_file.tell() # pad rest with zeros; tell returns current pos
+    assert pad >= 0
+    out_file.write(b'\0' * pad)
+
+    # now let's write out all the params
+    weights = [
+        *[layer.attention_norm.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.ffn_norm.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        model.norm.weight,
+        model.tok_embeddings.weight,
+        *[layer.attention.wq.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wk.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wv.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wo.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w1.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w2.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w3.weight for layer in model.layers],
+    ]
+    for w in weights:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, w)
+
+    # write to binary file
+    out_file.close()
+    print(f"wrote {filepath}")
+
+def version2_export(model, filepath, group_size=64):
+    """
+    Export the model weights in Q8_0 into .bin file to be read from C.
+    That is:
+    - quantize all weights to symmetric int8, in range [-127, 127]
+    - all other tensors (the rmsnorm params) are kept and exported in fp32
+    - quantization is done in groups of group_size to reduce the effects of any outliers
+    """
+    version = 2
+
+    # let's first do some validation for this export type
+    while model.params.dim % group_size != 0:
+        group_size //= 2
+        print(f"BACKOFF: reducing group size to {group_size} to fit hidden_dim")
+    weights = [
+        model.tok_embeddings.weight,
+        *[layer.attention.wq.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wk.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wv.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.attention.wo.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w1.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w2.weight for layer in model.layers],
+        *[layer.feed_forward.w3.weight for layer in model.layers],
+    ]
+    for w in weights:
+        assert w.numel() % group_size == 0, f"weight {i} has numel {w.numel()}, not a multiple of group_size {group_size}"
+
+    # write
+    out_file = open(filepath, 'wb')
+    # first write out the header. the header will be 256 bytes
+    # 1) write magic, which will be uint32 of "ak42" in ASCII
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('I', 0x616b3432))
+    # 2) write version, which will be int
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('i', version))
+    # 3) write the params, which will be 7 ints
+    p = model.params
+    hidden_dim = model.layers[0].feed_forward.w1.weight.shape[0]
+    n_kv_heads = p.n_heads if p.n_kv_heads is None else p.n_kv_heads
+    header = struct.pack('iiiiiii', p.dim, hidden_dim, p.n_layers, p.n_heads,
+                                    n_kv_heads, p.vocab_size, p.max_seq_len)
+    out_file.write(header)
+    # 4) write some other flags
+    shared_classifier = 1 # we do share a classifier, write flag as a byte
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('B', shared_classifier))
+    out_file.write(struct.pack('i', group_size)) # group size used for quantization
+    pad = 256 - out_file.tell() # pad rest with zeros; tell returns current pos
+    assert pad >= 0
+    out_file.write(b'\0' * pad)
+    # now that the header is done, let's write out the model
+
+    # first let's write out all the params that we are keeping in fp32: the norms
+    for layer in model.layers: # attention norms
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.attention_norm.weight)
+    for layer in model.layers: # MLP norms
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, layer.ffn_norm.weight)
+    serialize_fp32(out_file, model.norm.weight) # final pre-classifier norm
+
+    # now let's write out all the params that we are quantizing to Q8_0
+    # note we skip classifier weights, which are shared with the embedding
+    ew = []
+    scales = []
+    for i, w in enumerate(weights):
+        # quantize this weight
+        q, s, err = quantize_q80(w, group_size)
+        # save the int8 weights to file
+        serialize_int8(out_file, q) # save the tensor in int8
+        scales.append(s)  # we'll do all the scales after all the qs
+        # logging
+        ew.append((err, w.shape))
+        print(f"{i+1}/{len(weights)} quantized {tuple(w.shape)} to Q8_0 with max error {err}")
+
+    # save the scaling factors in fp32 here
+    # this is done to keep all the weights contiquous, making pointer arithmetic easier in C
+    for s in scales:
+        serialize_fp32(out_file, s)
+
+    # print the highest error across all weights, should be very small, e.g. O(~0.001)
+    ew.sort(reverse=True)
+    print(f"max quantization group error across all weights: {ew[0][0]}")
+
+    # write to binary file
+    out_file.close()
+    print(f"wrote {filepath}")
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# API entrypoint
+
+def model_export(model, filepath, version):
+    if version == 0:
+        legacy_export(model, filepath)
+    elif version == 1:
+        version1_export(model, filepath)
+    elif version == 2:
+        version2_export(model, filepath)
+    else:
+        raise ValueError(f"unknown version {version}")
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# CLI entrypoint
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    parser.add_argument("filepath", type=str, help="the output filepath")
+    parser.add_argument("--checkpoint", default="", type=str, help="model checkpoint, .pt file")
+    parser.add_argument("--version", default=0, type=int, help="the version to export with")
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+
+    # load the provided model checkpoint
+    checkpoint_dict = torch.load(args.checkpoint, map_location='cpu')
+    gptconf = ModelArgs(**checkpoint_dict['model_args'])
+    model = Transformer(gptconf)
+    state_dict = checkpoint_dict['model']
+    unwanted_prefix = '_orig_mod.'
+    for k,v in list(state_dict.items()):
+        if k.startswith(unwanted_prefix):
+            state_dict[k[len(unwanted_prefix):]] = state_dict.pop(k)
+    model.load_state_dict(state_dict, strict=False)
+    model.eval()
+
+    # export
+    model_export(model, args.filepath, args.version)
diff --git a/model.py b/model.py
index c8c82a9..044712f 100644
--- a/model.py
+++ b/model.py
@@ -338,55 +338,3 @@ class Transformer(nn.Module):
             idx = torch.cat((idx, idx_next), dim=1)
 
         return idx
-
-    def export(self, filepath='model.bin'):
-        """export the model weights in fp32 into .bin file to be read from C"""
-        f = open(filepath, 'wb')
-
-        def serialize(t):
-            d = t.detach().cpu().view(-1).numpy().astype(np.float32)
-            b = struct.pack(f'{len(d)}f', *d)
-            f.write(b)
-
-        # first write out the header
-        hidden_dim = self.layers[0].feed_forward.w1.weight.shape[0]
-        p = self.params
-        n_kv_heads = p.n_heads if p.n_kv_heads is None else p.n_kv_heads
-        header = struct.pack('iiiiiii', p.dim, hidden_dim, p.n_layers, p.n_heads,
-                                       n_kv_heads, p.vocab_size, p.max_seq_len)
-        f.write(header)
-
-        # next write out the embedding weights
-        serialize(self.tok_embeddings.weight)
-
-        # now all the layers
-        # attention weights
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.attention_norm.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.attention.wq.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.attention.wk.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.attention.wv.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.attention.wo.weight)
-        # ffn weights
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.ffn_norm.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.feed_forward.w1.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.feed_forward.w2.weight)
-        for layer in self.layers:
-            serialize(layer.feed_forward.w3.weight)
-        # final rmsnorm
-        serialize(self.norm.weight)
-        # note: no need to write final classifier weights due to weight sharing
-        # freqs_cis
-        serialize(self.freqs_cos[:p.max_seq_len])
-        serialize(self.freqs_sin[:p.max_seq_len])
-
-        # write to binary file
-        f.close()
-        print(f"wrote {filepath}")
diff --git a/run.c b/run.c
index 10d468b..59b8b29 100644
--- a/run.c
+++ b/run.c
@@ -148,6 +148,28 @@ void checkpoint_init_weights(TransformerWeights *w, Config* p, float* ptr, int s
     w->wcls = shared_weights ? w->token_embedding_table : ptr;
 }
 
+void read_checkpoint(char* checkpoint, Config* config, TransformerWeights* weights,
+                     int* fd, float** data, ssize_t* file_size) {
+    FILE *file = fopen(checkpoint, "rb");
+    if (!file) { fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't open file %s\n", checkpoint); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); }
+    // read in the config header
+    if (fread(config, sizeof(Config), 1, file) != 1) { exit(EXIT_FAILURE); }
+    // negative vocab size is hacky way of signaling unshared weights. bit yikes.
+    int shared_weights = config->vocab_size > 0 ? 1 : 0;
+    config->vocab_size = abs(config->vocab_size);
+    // figure out the file size
+    fseek(file, 0, SEEK_END); // move file pointer to end of file
+    *file_size = ftell(file); // get the file size, in bytes
+    fclose(file);
+    // memory map the Transformer weights into the data pointer
+    *fd = open(checkpoint, O_RDONLY); // open in read only mode
+    if (*fd == -1) { fprintf(stderr, "open failed!\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); }
+    *data = mmap(NULL, *file_size, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, *fd, 0);
+    if (*data == MAP_FAILED) { fprintf(stderr, "mmap failed!\n"); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); }
+    float* weights_ptr = *data + sizeof(Config)/sizeof(float);
+    checkpoint_init_weights(weights, config, weights_ptr, shared_weights);
+}
+
 // ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 // neural net blocks
 
@@ -604,27 +626,9 @@ int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
     TransformerWeights weights;
     int fd = 0;         // file descriptor for memory mapping
     float* data = NULL; // memory mapped data pointer
-    ssize_t file_size;     // size of the checkpoint file in bytes
-    {
-        FILE *file = fopen(checkpoint, "rb");
-        if (!file) { fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't open file %s\n", checkpoint); return 1; }
-        // read in the config header
-        if (fread(&config, sizeof(Config), 1, file) != 1) { return 1; }
-        // negative vocab size is hacky way of signaling unshared weights. bit yikes.
-        int shared_weights = config.vocab_size > 0 ? 1 : 0;
-        config.vocab_size = abs(config.vocab_size);
-        // figure out the file size
-        fseek(file, 0, SEEK_END); // move file pointer to end of file
-        file_size = ftell(file); // get the file size, in bytes
-        fclose(file);
-        // memory map the Transformer weights into the data pointer
-        fd = open(checkpoint, O_RDONLY); // open in read only mode
-        if (fd == -1) { fprintf(stderr, "open failed!\n"); return 1; }
-        data = mmap(NULL, file_size, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE, fd, 0);
-        if (data == MAP_FAILED) { fprintf(stderr, "mmap failed!\n"); return 1; }
-        float* weights_ptr = data + sizeof(Config)/sizeof(float);
-        checkpoint_init_weights(&weights, &config, weights_ptr, shared_weights);
-    }
+    ssize_t file_size;  // size of the checkpoint file in bytes
+    read_checkpoint(checkpoint, &config, &weights, &fd, &data, &file_size);
+
     // right now we cannot run for more than config.seq_len steps
     if (steps <= 0 || steps > config.seq_len) { steps = config.seq_len; }
 
diff --git a/train.py b/train.py
index b1972dc..e958538 100644
--- a/train.py
+++ b/train.py
@@ -29,6 +29,7 @@ from torch.distributed import destroy_process_group, init_process_group
 from torch.nn.parallel import DistributedDataParallel as DDP
 
 from tinystories import Task
+from export import model_export
 
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # I/O
@@ -287,7 +288,7 @@ while True:
                 }
                 print(f"saving checkpoint to {out_dir}")
                 torch.save(checkpoint, os.path.join(out_dir, "ckpt.pt"))
-                raw_model.export(os.path.join(out_dir, "model.bin"))
+                model_export(raw_model, os.path.join(out_dir, "model.bin"), version=0)
     if iter_num == 0 and eval_only:
         break