Three earlier "the title never appears" claims came from instruments
later found broken -- a stale pixel oracle, a 41 s sampling interval, a
freezing stream. This one carries its own evidence.
title_probe_xchecked.py restarts its capture stream every 30 s AND prints
its reading beside an independent `import` grab every 60 s:
1851 frames in 560.2 s = 3.30 fps
cross-checks 9, disagreements 1
max glyph 0
t= 62s stream 6.05 | import 0.07 disagree (a fade, logos mid-transition)
t=123s stream 7.40 | import 7.49 agree
t=183s stream 8.18 | import 8.29 agree
t=243s stream 0.23 | import 0.10 agree
t=311s stream 89.68 | import 89.51 agree
t=371s stream 80.97 | import 81.58 agree
t=426s stream 117.43 | import 117.72 agree
t=487s stream 77.71 | import 76.25 agree
t=546s stream 70.43 | import 70.55 agree
Eight of nine agree within 2%, fps held at 3.30 with no collapse to 1.60,
and the surface moved through dark and bright phases. So the frames were
live: over 560 continuous seconds from launch, sampled 3.3 times a
second, the interactive title's green (A) plate never appears while the
game renders throughout. The final frame correlates 0.0145 / -0.0047 /
0.0102 with our title / main menu / EXTRAS renders -- attract-movie
content, not a UI screen.
Why remains unknown. live-title-press-a.png with its 753 glyph pixels
proves the title was reachable from this container on 2026-08-28, and
clearing the shader cache fixed the black surface but not this.
The two emulator-side questions (gamma control, 8AX vs ptbase) are
therefore blocked on a characterised failure rather than a suspicion.
Neither blocks the five menu screens, so I am returning to static work;
the probe is committed for whoever picks it up.
METHOD: a probe that cross-checks itself turns "no result" into a result.
