ob_bitflag.py is the follow-on the word-level refutation named: for every 4-byte
offset in the window and every one of its 32 bits, count how many entities have
it set, keep the pairs whose count is exactly the counter, and require them to
match again after a transition. Both polarities, since an objective could be
marked by a bit that is CLEAR on it.
Three runs, no verification, and the reasons are recorded: run 1 gave 187 + 33
candidates at counter 4 and then reported "the counter never moved" for 700 s -
about a mission that had ENDED in GAME OVER partway through; run 2 hit the same
dead mission; run 3 had the counter at a different address (the guard refused,
correctly) and then froze after one filter.
The hole is closed. frozen() asks whether the guest is ANIMATING, and the GAME
OVER screen animates happily - mean colour (114,22,63) - so every liveness check
passed while the mission was over. frozen.in_flight() classifies the screen with
screen_id, and ob_hunt/ob_flag/ob_bitflag now abort with NO LONGER IN FLIGHT.
That is the second confident negative in this investigation that was really about
a dead world, so the rule is written down: before believing "X never happened",
show that the thing that would produce X was still running.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
With the pilot finally shooting, the experiment completed both halves. Sample A
at counter 12 over 120 entities gave 2 offsets where exactly 12 entities share a
value; the counter then went 12 -> 11 and NEITHER survived. So within +-0x400 of
an entity's position triple there is no 4-byte word whose shared-value population
tracks REMAINING OB.
The limits are recorded as part of the result, because they bound it: the test
asks which entities share an EXACT 32-bit value, so a single bit ORed into a word
that also carries health or a timer would never show up - a bit-level version of
the same differential is the follow-on. Anything outside the window, or on
entities that entities2 cannot see (it types by position CHANGING, so stationary
objectives are invisible), is untested too, and the populations differed a lot
between samples - 120 against 194.
Separately: REMAINING OB went 12 -> 11, the first decrement of this whole
investigation, while pilot.py logged 411 fire=1 samples and the HUD reached YOU
KILLED WARPLANES 0003. Stated carefully - it does NOT show the counter counts
kills, since an earlier run had the hostile population fall by a third with no
movement; it shows some kills close something the counter tracks.
Two robustness fixes: ob_flag retries an empty entity sample (one void run was
caused by exactly that), and Pad releases everything on interpreter exit - a
file-backed pad PERSISTS after its writer dies, so a tool killed mid-press would
leave a button held and the game would walk through menus on its own.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
live_delta.py exists for the freeze: a frozen run is guest code spinning, and
spinning code waits on guest memory, so the words still changing while frozen
should be the loop's own bookkeeping and whatever it polls. Measured control on a
RUNNING game, so the frozen number has something to be compared against:
1863296 words change in 4 s, 2.08% of the 357.7 MB of data extents. The sparse
4.6 GB costs nothing - the walk is over SEEK_DATA extents.
The freeze did not reproduce this run, so the frozen half of that measurement is
still owed.
ob_flag.py: an unreadable HUD frame is now retried rather than counted as a
mismatch. ob_read returns None on a frame it cannot read - an explosion across
the plate, a flash - and the sanity check treated that as "the address is wrong"
and aborted a perfectly good run.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
A Stage 02 run froze at TIME 01:02 with a radio line caught mid-word. The
emulator was alive at ~200% CPU with its main thread in state R, two screenshots
six seconds apart were byte-identical, and the log ended in a spin: 1171 of the
run's 1200 "host resume was refused" lines are the single pair F80002AC ->
F8000240, starting at the line immediately after F80002AC is created, and the log
never grows again. The commit that added that warning records what normal looks
like - about 7 in a whole boot - so this is a 150x anomaly on one pair rather
than noise. F8000240 itself appears exactly once outside the spin, at creation,
and calls nothing.
Eleven of the frozen process's 79 host threads have zero CPU, four of them
consecutive late-created guest threads - the same signature as the lost resume
that c1b57f93b fixed for the title screen. That fix IS in this build, so either
there is a second window in that race or this only looks alike.
The inference is named as one: nothing here maps a guest handle to a host tid, so
"the zero-CPU threads are the ones being resumed" is a reading of two consistent
observations. And the refusals could equally be the game's reaction to a worker
stuck for another reason - log_mask=13 has the Kernel channel disabled, so not
one of F8000240's waits is visible. The next experiment is written down
concretely: reproduce with LOG_MASK=12 LOG_LEVEL=3 and map the handle to a tid.
Also caps ob_hunt's survivor listing at 40 - an aborted run printed all 21482 and
buried the line that mattered.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
Three things from one Stage 02 run.
The address recurs a third time: HUD=4 RAM=4 at 0xbdb59668, so 3 of the 5 runs
measured put the counter exactly there.
The counter is NOT a live class head-count. With the counter at 4 the typed
entity list was 8 attackers, 7 friendly Delta Sabers, 7 turrets and the player -
no class has 4 members and no pair of them sums to 4. That sharpens the corpus's
existing "012 against 118 live ADAN" note from "not the hostile count" to "not
the count of any class this enumeration can see".
The flag experiment itself proves nothing, and why is the useful part. It found
20 offsets where exactly 4 of 23 entities agree, then reported "the counter never
moved" for 600 s. The guest had stopped advancing ten seconds into flight:
pilot.py logged 724 s of identical speed/yaw/pitch, and two screenshots six
seconds apart were byte-identical, max delta 0 over 863325 pixels - while
screen_id said "flight", the emulator burned 212% CPU and every liveness check
passed. So that was a fact about a dead world. Withdrawn along with it: the claim
in ob_session.sh that the counter climbs on its own in the first minutes, which
one advancing run supports and this one cannot.
frozen.py makes it a single call, checked in both directions (0 on the frozen
pair, 254 on two frames of a live run), and ob_hunt/ob_flag now say GUEST FROZEN
rather than waiting out their timeouts.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01PMRJjbxLqZtsb5Vb7KunPE
