Files
disasm/_wip/NES PowerPad Test Card (U)/OVERVIEW.md
T
tmerritt 9aef410424 Promotes Donkey Kong Jr
Adds remaining NROM as _wip
Update gitignore to not keep object files
Adds AGENTS.md as this is an AI helped project
2026-10-16 13:46:20 -04:00

2.9 KiB
Raw Blame History

NES PowerPad Test Card (U) — Skeleton Project

ROM: _wip/NES PowerPad Test Card (U)/NES PowerPad Test Cart (U) [!].nes (24,592 bytes, iNES). Status: SKELETON — not yet disassembled. The entire 16 KB PRG bank is a single unclassified block; copilot/prg.s is the default-project skeleton (default_project.tar.gz) that reproduces it as one .incbin. The skeleton build is byte-identical at the PRG level.

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 Horizontal
Battery-backed flag clear
ROM SHA-256 4392b68e3bfde3177ebbd717f48e4c12010ce00b70396b552e76ca3746a0f2da
PRG SHA-256 e9b8009cb1b218594bfb478111912ee6e2c8db574f8ff8f03a1aaddc064b110c

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

Vector Target Note
NMI $E06E per-frame heartbeat
RESET $E000 non-$C000 entry at $E000 — trace from here in Pass 1
IRQ $E000 redirects to RESET — unused placeholder

copilot/ Contents

File Purpose
NES PowerPad Test Cart (U) [!].nes original ROM image (reference)
prg.bin / header.bin / chr.bin split image, produced by _tools/splitnes.py
prg.s Pass-1 skeleton: .incbin "prg.bin", $0000, $4000 (whole PRG)
symbols.inc shared NES hardware constants (PPU/APU/controller, from the skeleton)
locals.inc project-local zero-page aliases — empty for now (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

Header/CHR are reproduced verbatim from header.bin/chr.bin (not linked): make verifies PRG bytes only at this stage, which is exactly what a skeleton proves. When this project is promoted to a full disassembly, header.s / chr.s (as e.g. Burger Time (U)) and a full-ROM make target get added.

Build

cd "_wip/NES PowerPad Test Card (U)/copilot"
make        # → cmp reconstructed_prg.bin prg.bin → "BYTE-IDENTICAL"

Next Steps (per PROMPTS.md)

  1. Pass 1 — replace the blanket .incbin with classified code/data: trace reachability from RESET ($E000) and NMI ($E06E), emit per-instruction ; PRG:$xxxx AA BB annotations, keep unreached bytes as explicit .byte blocks.
  2. Pass 2 — replace Label_/Sub_ names with semantic routine names; fill locals.inc.
  3. Pass 3 — name data tables/structures; release provisional flags.
  4. Promotion — move to a top-level <name>/copilot/ folder, add full-ROM build (header.s + chr.s + vectors), and write the power-on flow OVERVIEW.md in the established style; then it joins the root index's numbered inventory.