Files
disasm/_wip/Pyramid (U)/OVERVIEW.md
T
tmerritt 71ada15de0 Promote Donkey Kong (JU): Pass 3 complete, whole-ROM byte-identical
Pass 3 named the 10 data regions in prg.s, then the project was promoted
out of _wip/ so `make` now proves header + PRG + CHR against the original
ROM instead of only the PRG bank.

Data regions named:
  LevelPtrTable        $C000-$C03B  (60 B)    level header data
  ObjectPtrTable       $C03C-$C043  (8 B)     4 pointer pairs
  LevelDataPtrTable    $C044-$C79D  (1882 B)  level data pointers
  SpriteInitPtrTable   labelled at $C4B0      see residue note
  UnreachedCode_D650   $D650-$D696  (71 B)    unreached code
  UnreachedCode_E144   $E144-$E165  (34 B)    unreached code
  MusicDataTable       $F55B-$FA47  (1261 B)  music/sound data
  APUDataTable         $FAE6-$FB74  (143 B)   APU pulse/noise tables
  SfxDataTable         $FE59-$FFEF  (407 B)   sound-effect data
  VectorTable          $FFF6-$FFFF  (10 B)    padding + NMI/RESET/IRQ

Promotion (per the AGENTS.md checklist):
  - git mv "_wip/Donkey Kong (JU)" "Donkey Kong (JU)"
  - add copilot/rom.nes -> ../Donkey Kong (JU).nes symlink
  - add header.s / chr.s (one-line .incbin of header.bin / chr.bin)
  - linker.cfg gains HEADER ($0000/16 B) and CHR ($0000/8 KB)
  - Makefile switched from `cmp reconstructed_prg.bin prg.bin` to
    `cmp reconstructed.nes rom.nes`
  - no _tools path change (this Makefile never referenced _tools/)
    and no `make regen` pipeline exists for it

Doc corrections:
  - project OVERVIEW.md said Mirroring Vertical; header byte 6 = $00
    means Horizontal (the root index was right) — fixed
  - root OVERVIEW.md: row 18 now BYTE-IDENTICAL, tier paragraph and
    summary table refreshed (they had drifted around the Lunar Pool and
    Urban Champion promotions), new per-project detail entry
  - counts corrected to 19 top-level / 17 _wip in OVERVIEW.md,
    TODO.md and AGENTS.md

Residue recorded rather than guessed:
  - Pass 2 is partial: 919 Label_ definitions remain (214 semantic
    labels applied); noted in TODO.md so nobody reads the promotion as
    full semantic naming
  - SpriteInitPtrTable's label sits at $C4B0: the routine at $C807 reads
    $C4A7,x/$C4A8,x, but that table starts mid-row and a label there
    would split the canonical 16-byte audit-comment line

Verification:
  make clean && make  -> "Byte-identical ROM verified."
  verify_pass1.py     -> 19/19 top-level build, Donkey Kong (JU) OK
                         (6014 instr / 12505 B), all comments canonical

Doc-drift sweep: build tiers, mirroring, and stale status tails

Reconciled the docs against verified reality after the Lunar Pool / Urban
Champion / Donkey Kong (JU) promotions and the 2026-10-19 audit-comment
standardization. No source behaviour changed except the two build fixes below.

Build tier (whole-ROM vs PRG-only)
  - AGENTS.md: the 17 `_wip/` projects are real disassemblies at the PRG-build
    tier, not "skeletons"; header.s/chr.s/rom.nes are promotion additions;
    verify_pass1.py covers the top-level projects.
  - Root OVERVIEW.md: `_wip` prose, audit-comment narrative and summary table
    refreshed (37.5% figure, SEEDED vs OK wording, re-trace false alarm).
  - Promoted projects whose build blocks still claimed `make` emits
    `reconstructed_prg.bin` compared to `prg.bin` (Balloon Fight, Baseball,
    CIRCUS, Clu Clu Land, Excitebike, NES PowerPad, Pac-Man (USA), Tennis):
    now describe the whole-ROM `reconstructed.nes` vs `rom.nes`.
  - Lunar Pool / Urban Champion / CIRCUS also had stale `cd "_wip/..."`
    build paths and "Promotion" items; retargeted to their top-level folders.

Mirroring (header byte 6 bit 0: 0 = Horizontal, 1 = Vertical)
  - Corrected DK Jr. prose "horizontal mirroring (flag 6 = $01)" -> vertical,
    and both `_wip/Pac-Man` variant notes "Both use vertical mirroring" ->
    horizontal (both are byte-6 = $00).
  - Re-audited every project OVERVIEW: 0 rows and 0 prose claims now disagree.

Stale status tails
  - Retitled/restatused the `_wip` OVERVIEWs to their real `prg.s` (Golf,
    Ice Climber (U), Lode Runner, Millipede, Pac-Man Tengen, Pac-Man (U),
    Popeye 0/1, Raid, Raid a2, Hogan's Alley, Mario Bros); Golf's
    skeleton-era contents rows and Next Steps corrected.
  - Dropped the skeleton-era "## Next Steps (per `PROMPTS.md`)" heading and
    the "(from the skeleton)" wording across all project OVERVIEWs.
  - Rewrote Lunar Pool / Urban Champion Next Steps (both already Pass 1-3
    complete and promoted; their tails still described pending Pass 2 and
    promotion); fixed root row 13 (Wild Gunman) and row 20 (Duck Hunt).

Also lands two code fixes carried with this sweep:
  - `_wip/Hogan's Alley (JU)`: $E9F1-$E9FD and $EA13-$EA14 reclassified as
    data with canonical audit comments (the seeded build had decoded a data
    table base as code, breaking the build since 2ae09f7). `make` ->
    BYTE-IDENTICAL again; reconstructed_prg.bin/.lbl refreshed.
  - `_wip/Pyramid (U)`: `Label_D72E` -> `NMI:` (byte-identical).

Verification:
  make (Hogan's Alley, Pyramid)      -> BYTE-IDENTICAL, BYTE-IDENTICAL
  _tools/verify_pass1.py             -> 19/19 build, all canonical,
                                        "No truncated or unfaithful Pass 1"
  mirroring audit (rows + prose)     -> 0 mismatches

Donkey Kong (JU): complete Pass 2 — all 919 Label_ definitions named

The last non-zero Label_ residue in the repo is now gone. Every one of the
919 address-derived definitions in copilot/prg.s is replaced:

* 319 routine entry points (jsr/jmp targets):
  - 102 named from observed behaviour (LoadSpriteInitPointerToZp00 $C807,
    CopyVramDataToBuffer $CBDF, CheckSpriteListCollision $D8AD,
    UpdateRandomSeed $F4ED, ReadControllers $F50E, UpdateSoundEngine $FA48, ...)
  - 217 left as SubC<addr> — honest residue where the body is too
    context-dependent to name without guessing (Golf: 108, Mario Bros: 223)
  - the 77 already-named entries untouched
* 600 internal branch targets named <Routine>_Block / <Routine>_Block_n in
  address order within their owning routine (DK Jr./Balloon Fight convention).
  Ownership is control-flow containment, so a loop that physically precedes
  its own entry lands correctly (FlushPpuBuffer_Block $F1EC under $F228).
* Two proposal collisions disambiguated by indexing zero-page slot:
  UpdateObjectListZp5D/DispatchObjectStateZp5E ($DA16/$DA4C) vs
  UpdateObjectListZpAE/DispatchObjectStateZpAF ($E1E9/$E250).

jsr/jmp operands stay numeric (Wild Gunman style); only branch operands are
symbolic. Applied with _tools/pass2.py apply (919 defs + 2,622 refs rewritten,
comments re-aligned); the ROM still rebuilds byte-identically and
verify_pass1.py reports 19/19 canonical with no truncated split.

Docs synced: project OVERVIEW.md gains a Pass 2 Details section, root
OVERVIEW.md rows + conventions, TODO.md section 4 closed. dk_full_map.tsv now
records the complete applied map (its zp rows remain unapplied proposals).

_wip status correction: five false "Pass 2 complete" claims + map audit

The `_wip` tier's "Pass 2 complete" headers counted their draft maps' rows, not
the names actually present in `prg.s`, and described the count of *neutral*
`ZpXX` slots in `locals.inc` as "zero-page semantic aliases". Verified against
the sources and corrected in the root inventory rows, the project OVERVIEWs and
TODO:

  project                named/total  Label_ left  drafted map
  Pinball (JU)           180 / 681    501          210 rows, 179 applied
  Ice Climber (JE)        76 / 973    897          255 rows,  76 applied
  Donkey Kong Jr. Math    64 / 1035   971          243 rows,  62 applied
  Duck Hunt (JUE)         31 / 472    441          272 rows,  31 applied
  Ice Climber (U)          2 / 973    971          none - Pass 2 not started

No `_wip` project is Pass 2 complete. Ice Climber (U) was the worst case: the
2026-10-19 sweep itself restated it "Pass 2 complete" while describing its 971
`Label_` definitions in the same paragraph - a copy-paste from (JE); (U) has no
map file at all.

Drafted maps audited row by row against the committed split: they are not
applicable. 100/243 (DK Jr. Math), 96/255 (Ice Climber (JE)) and 17/210
(Pinball) rows point at addresses that are not instruction boundaries - they
were built against an older code/data split - while most of the rest are
unlabelled boundaries that no operand references, or (Duck Hunt) competing
candidate names for one label (`Label_C2BF` alone carries 205). Rows that are
both insertable and corroborated by control flow: 0 in every map. Recorded as
stale and kept for provenance; Pass 2 here needs a fresh map derived from the
committed split.

Also corrected while verifying:
- Mario Bros entry counts (docs said 252 / 90 + 165 / 477 sites / 156 neutral
  slots; the file holds 262 distinct `jsr`/`jmp` targets = 39 semantic + 223
  `SubC<addr>`, 478 sites, 151 slots).
- root `_wip` prose line/label ranges (4,482-17,180 lines, 192-971 `Label_`,
  11,126 total) and the Ice Climber code figure (74.6% / 6,112 instr, not
  74.7% / 6,113).
- TODO §4 re-scoped to the promoted tier, with the `_wip` residue table added.

Verification: `make` across all 17 `_wip` projects -> BYTE-IDENTICAL (17/17);
`_tools/verify_pass1.py` -> 19/19 build, all canonical, "No truncated or
unfaithful Pass 1 found". No source bytes changed.

Balloon Fight (JU): apply locals.inc/symbols.inc names to prg.s (Pass 3)

Substitutes symbol names for 922 numeric operands: 125 hardware registers
(symbols.inc) and 797 of 813 zero-page/RAM operands (locals.inc). The 15
multi-alias addresses were resolved per routine; 16 operands stay numeric
because $13 is used there as a plain high-byte scratch beside Temp12 and
none of its three aliases fits.

- _tools/apply_symbols.py: the substitution tool (dry run by default;
  --sites supplies per-routine choices for multi-alias addresses, --report
  lists the residue). Only the operand token is rewritten, so the
  `; CPU:$.... PRG:....  XX XX` audit comments survive byte for byte.
- prg.s: operand tokens only. make prints "Byte-identical ROM verified."
- OVERVIEW.md (project): instruction quotes now match prg.s, new
  alias-reuse table, and section 10 rewritten from the stale "497 Label_"
  prose to the real naming state and the 16-site residue.
- OVERVIEW.md (root), TODO.md, AGENTS.md: status, counts, tool list.

verify_pass1.py: 19/19 OK, all audit comments canonical.

Bomberman (U): apply locals.inc/symbols.inc names to prg.s (Pass 3)

Substitutes 362 zero-page operands in copilot/prg.s with the names already
declared in copilot/locals.inc: 354 from single-name addresses and 8 from the
two multi-alias addresses, resolved per site:

  $E0/$E1  IndirectPtrLo/Hi in the RAM-clear loop
              (InitializeSystemAndRunMainLoop -> Main_WriteSoundDispatchIndex_C317,
              which writes $00 across $0100-$07FF via (ptr),y),
              SoundDelay0 (the base of the per-channel delay table, indexed by X)
              in the sound engine;

No symbols.inc substitution was needed: copilot/prg.s contains no numeric
hardware operands ($2000-$4017) at all. All 362 operands were already written
with two hex digits, so no ca65 `a:` prefix was required.

make -> Byte-identical ROM verified. Operand token only; mnemonics, spacing and
the trailing `; CPU:$.... PRG:....  XX XX` audit comments are untouched.

Remaining numeric operands (758) address bytes that no .inc file names:
505 zero-page (133 addresses), 171 RAM $0100-$07FF (46 addresses) and 82
table reads in $8000+ (54 addresses).

Bomberman (U): substitute 24 in-file table labels at ROM operand sites

Uses the new `--labels` option of `apply_symbols.py` with the
ld65 `-Ln` output (`reconstructed.lbl`). Only labels that prg.s
actually defines and that live in the PRG (+) are considered,
so CHR/header segment labels cannot leak in.

24 numeric operands (`lda ,x`, `adc ,y`, etc.) now read
`lda SystemPaletteData,x`, `adc GameplayObjectClassTable,y`, etc.
All 24 point at exact label addresses; the remaining 58 ROM-space
numeric operands point at interior bytes or unlabelled tables and
stay numeric.

make -> Byte-identical ROM verified.

Bomberman (U): update docs for Pass 3 symbol application

- Project OVERVIEW.md: corrected source file from main.s to prg.s/header.s/chr.s;
  output name from reconstructed_bomberman.nes to reconstructed.nes;
  rewritten §10 Zero-Page/RAM Symbols table to match locals.inc (with aliases
  and unnamed residue documented);
  fixed §4 step 1/4 to use IndirectPtrLo/Hi and SoundDelay0 names;
  fixed §11 InesHeader location (now header.s);
  added §2 Pass 3 summary table;
  added §13 notes on legacy main.s and Main_WriteSoundDispatchIndex_C317 misnomer.

- Root OVERVIEW.md §3: updated source line count (7,553), file list, and added
  Pass 3 summary.

Both builds verified byte-identical.

Pass 3 symbol application to all 19 top-level projects (2026-10-19)

Ran _tools/apply_symbols.py --write on all 19 promoted projects to substitute
symbolic names from symbols.inc (hardware registers) and locals.inc (zero-page
RAM aliases, forward references) into prg.s operands. The tool preserves the
canonical audit comments (; CPU:$XXXX PRG:XXXX AA BB) and preserves byte
identity — all projects still rebuild byte-identical to their original ROMs.

Per-project operand substitutions:
  Baseball (UE)             121  (85 single + 36 hardware)
  Tennis (JU)                18  (18 single)
  Pac-Man (USA) (Namco)     524  (524 single; 727 multi-alias residues)
  CIRCUS                    118  (38 single + 80 hardware; 23 multi-alias residues)
  Wild Gunman (U)            76  (11 single + 65 hardware)
  Joypad Test Cartridge (U)  47  (47 hardware)
  NES PowerPad Test Card (U) 89  (89 hardware)
  MUSCLE (U)                220  (91 single + 129 hardware)
  Lunar Pool (U)             45  (18 single + 27 hardware)
  Donkey Kong (JU)           75  (17 single + 58 hardware)
  Urban Champion (JU)        70  (4 single + 66 hardware)

Already had symbols applied: Balloon Fight, Bomberman, Burger Time,
Clu Clu Land, Defender 2, Donkey Kong 3, Donkey Kong Jr.

Skipped: Excitebike (JU) — inline prg.s definitions conflict with locals.inc
values and source operands don't match ROM byte encodings; automatic
substitution breaks byte identity.

Documentation updated:
  OVERVIEW.md — added Pass 3 symbol notes to all 19 project entries,
  added Urban Champion as section #36
  TODO.md — current state now reflects complete symbol application across
  the promoted tier

Verification: python3 _tools/verify_pass1.py reports all 19 projects OK/SEEDED,
all canonical comments, no truncated or unfaithful Pass 1.
2026-10-19 14:55:08 -04:00

7.6 KiB
Raw Blame History

Pyramid (U) — Pass 1

ROM: _wip/Pyramid (U)/Pyramid (U) (Sachen).nes (24,592 bytes, iNES). Status: PASS 1 — code/data split complete, byte-identical. 5,834 of 16,384 PRG bytes (35.6%) are classified as traced 6502 code (396 labels, 70 distinct jsr targets); everything else is explicit .byte data with per-line PRG-offset annotations. make → cmp reconstructed_prg.bin prg.bin → BYTE-IDENTICAL.

ROM Facts

Property Value
Mapper 0 (NROM) — from the iNES header
PRG 16 KB (header claims map at CPU $C000–$FFFF)
CHR 8 KB
Mirroring Vertical
Battery-backed flag clear
ROM SHA-256 8e042dc55093e47547ff9fa26e7fec2c3fb94ebac0d0686cc8bb6c2749a6066d
PRG SHA-256 251688d69009091c4a37e831e0fd6114bb1dc9d1bace98032c1b9a3030b5e378

Interrupt Vectors (taken from PRG $3FFA–$3FFF)

Vector Target Note
NMI $D72E normal per-frame engine entry (waits PPU, runs frame state, drives APU silence/queue)
RESET $FF00 real cold-start code — see boot chain below
IRQ $FF00 redirects to RESET target; sei at boot, no cli seen on the traced path — IRQ likely never fires

Boot chain (all statically traced from $FF00)

  1. ldx #$FF / txs / sei / cld, clear PPUCTRL/PPUMASK.
  2. Repeated LDA #<val> / JSR $FF49 — $FF49 does STA $4100 (write beyond the NES register space, $4000–$4017) followed by a long delay loop ($CE×256-ish iterations ×4 outer). The header claims mapper 0, but on the real Sachen cart these $4100 pokes are an mapper-unlock/protection sequence. Boot pokes $30, $10/$30/$10+$30 (via $FF4C delay variant twice) or $20/$30/$20 depending on a check.
  3. JSR $FF57 — reads stack page bytes $0120/$0121 and compares against $41/$56 ("A","V"). SEC ⇒ proceeds to the $4100 poke sequence above; CLC ⇒ alternate poke sequence, then falls into:
  4. JSR $FF69 — seeds $0120/$0121 with $41/$56.
  5. JMP $C800 — real init: waits two $2002 vblank phases, clears $0000-$07FF, builds ZP pointer $D7/$D8 = $C8xx, zeroes $00, writes $98 to PPUCTRL / $1A to PPUMASK.

$FF74-$FF7C (LDA #$00 / STA $0120 / STA $0121 / RTS) clears the checker bytes; never called from static paths — emitted as data in the tail block.

Dispatcher architecture (two queue + jmp ($0002) dispatchers)

The engine is the classic queued-task pattern (same family as the repo's Burger Time / DK Jr. analysis):

Dispatcher Site Pointer Vector table Entries
1 $C3A3 $0002/$0003 $C3A6 9: $C3B6 $C3C7 $C3FD $C35F $C3E3 $C3E7 $C3EB $C3EF $D820
2 $CCCA $0002/$0003 $CCD5 8: $CCEE $CD27 $CC90 $CD75 $CD43 $CDA4 $CE1A $CE5E

Both build the pointer with the TXA / ASL / TAX / LDA $tbl,X / STA $02 / LDA $tbl+1,X / STA $03 / LDX $45 / LDY $46 / jmp ($0002) idiom; dispatcher 2 additionally copies an 8-byte low-value table from $CCCD,X into $04EA,X and syncs $0430/$0431 (X/Y "cursor" state) before the jump. The jmp ($0002) sites terminate static traces; the tail at $CCEB (jsr $D2BF / jsr $D476 / jmp $CC90) re-queues into dispatcher 2.

Pass-1 candidates not statically resolvable (emitted as code where entered only via runtime dispatch, documented for Pass 2 review): $D7EB (EA EA A2 FF 9A / jmp $D655 — alternate cold-start stub, caller unknown), $C201 (PPUCTRL/PPUMASK setup helper + OAM-buffer splitters, fall-through of the $2002 wait loop at $C1F6-$C200), $C43E (division/multiply-style arithmetic helper entered after rts at $C43D).

Code coverage summary (final Pass-1 state)

Metric Value
Code bytes traced 5,834 / 16,384 (35.6%)
Labels 396
Distinct jsr targets 70
Data/gap bytes 10,550 (64.4%)
Indirect jmp ($0002) sites 2 (both queue dispatchers)

Regions entered only via runtime dispatch (queue-table targets) are traced; remaining unreached bytes sit in the data map below.

Data map (unreached bytes, all provenance-checked)

Region Size Content evidence
$C201-$C2FF tail ($C225-$C2FF) 219 zero padding after the PPU-setup helpers
$C34A-$C35E 21 data after the dispatcher-1 jmp ($0002) tail
$C3A6-$C3B7 18 dispatcher-1 vector table (9 words)
$C585-$C7FF 635 text/marker tables (tile-index values $88 $20 $88 $C1; zero-padded from $C714)
$C95A-$C9A6, $CAAA-$CAF2, $CBC1-$CBDB 177 tile-index/lookup tables read via lda $tbl,X
$CCCD-$CCE4 24 dispatcher-2 low-byte table (8) + vector table (8 words)
$D021-$D029 9 brightness ramp $0F $14 $28 $3C $50 $64
$D1AA-$D1B1, $D2AB-$D2BE 28 small pointer/value tables
$D320-$D3A0 129 per-level byte tables ($01 $02 $01 $02 ... $00 $08)
$D467-$D475, $D4EE-$D509, $D556-$D56A, $D5D5-$D631 146 pointer/value pools read via lda $tbl,X / adc arithmetic
$D69C-$D6AB 16 value ramp $27 $29 $2B $2D ...
$D79D-$D7E2 37 small tables flanking the NMI handler
$D7F3-$DE99 1,703 packed level data ($22 $2F-patterned runs after the $D7EB stub)
$DEBB-$DECA 16 table
$DF3E-$DF7F 80 music frequency table ($C3 $EC $6A $ED ...)
$E276-$ED6D 2,808 audio pool: instrument/envelope ramps ($FA $A8 $80 $3C ... declining) + APU-register data
$EDBF-$F890 2,770 audio/graphics bulk tables + large $00 runs (incl. $F07F-$F890 padding)
$F942-$FEFF 1,470 mostly zeros — padding, save for small tables near $FA00
$FF74-$FFF9 134 tail: clear-checker bytes + pure zeros up to the vector page

copilot/ Contents

File Purpose
Pyramid (U) (Sachen).nes original ROM image (reference)
prg.bin / header.bin / chr.bin split image, produced by _tools/splitnes.py
prg.s Pass-1 classified source: traced code + explicit .byte data, ; PRG:$xxxx AA BB per line
symbols.inc shared NES hardware constants (PPU/APU/controller)
locals.inc project-local zero-page aliases — still empty (filled in Pass 2)
linker.cfg PRG at $C000, 16 KB, fill = yes
Makefile links reconstructed_prg.bin and cmps it against prg.bin
reconstructed_prg.bin build output from the last verified build
prg.s.skeleton backup of the pre-classification skeleton (.incbin-only) source

Header/CHR are reproduced verbatim from header.bin/chr.bin (not linked): make verifies PRG bytes only at this stage, exactly like every other _wip/ skeleton. When this project is promoted to a top-level full disassembly, header.s / chr.s and a full-ROM make target (cf. Burger Time (U)) get added.

Build

cd "_wip/Pyramid (U)/copilot"
make        # → cmp reconstructed_prg.bin prg.bin → "BYTE-IDENTICAL"

Next Steps

  1. Pass 1 — DONE. Code/data split, ; PRG:$xxxx AA BB audit annotations on every line, byte-identical build.
  2. Pass 2 — semantic names: BootUnlock, StackByteCheck, QueueDispatch1/2, NMI/IRQ frame handlers, audio routines; fill locals.inc with zero-page aliases ($02/$03 pointer, $45/$46 X/Y state, $04EA dispatcher copy, $0120/$0121 "AV" checker).
  3. Pass 3 — name the data tables (level data at $D7F3+, envelope pool at $E276+, frequency table at $DF3E, ramps).
  4. Promotion — move to a top-level <name>/copilot/ folder, add header.s/chr.s + full-ROM make, write the power-on flow OVERVIEW.md in the established style; then it joins the root index's numbered inventory.