15702d0d05
The --framerate_limit=30 run refuted the time-based reading on every discriminating row, against its author's own expectation: modal alpha step stayed 17 where time-based predicts 34, units/second halved to 30.2, the publisher dwell doubled to 8.450 s. Both controls passed FIRST -- the limiter demonstrably took effect, and all 8 splash quad rects were identical, so nothing but the frame rate differed. 255 x 1 / 15 = 17 at 28.4, 51.4 and 54.8 presents/s alike. THE GAME ADVANCES 1 UNIT PER PRESENTED FRAME. This port advances `time_units += delta * units_per_second`. Two different mechanisms that agree at exactly one frame rate -- 60 Hz, the only rate the console ever asked the game to be right at. 🔴 DO NOT MAKE THE PORT FRAME-BASED TO MATCH THE GAME, and the reason is now in authored/timing.json so nobody "fixes" it. A time-based port reproduces a 60 Hz console on hardware that is not 60 Hz; a frame-based one drifts on every machine that is not -- and this port has measured ITSELF between 9.7 and 69.4 fps depending on the renderer. Matching the game's mechanism would import a fragility the game never had to survive, because the game only ever ran on one box. ⚠️ BUT IT SHARPENS WHAT 60 CLAIMS. If units/second IS the present rate, then `keyframe_units_per_second = 60` is no longer "the unit is 1/60 s". It is "the game presented these screens at 60 Hz on the console" -- a harder statement, and checkable. ✅ And supported for the first time. Canary unlimited presents at 51-55 Hz with a splash dwell of 4.30/4.60/4.37 s. A natively 30 Hz game would present at ~30 in Canary too -- the framerate_limit run proves it, since forcing 30 made that same splash take 8.45 s. It does not take 8.45 s unforced. So the game asks for ~60. Kept as `authored`, not promoted: this is inference over three measurements rather than a measurement of units per second. It becomes `measured` when someone reads the console's present rate for these screens directly. 🔴 AND IT CLOSES THE CONSTANT AS A CAUSE OF FINDING 3, in the direction that matters. Under the frame-based model the only alternative is a 30 Hz console, which puts the plate at 236/30 = 7.87 s -- LATER than the 3.93 s shipping, not earlier. There is NO console present rate that makes the plate arrive sooner than this port already shows it. The human reported it late; no value of this constant can produce that. The method note is theirs and it is the durable part: four positions on this number were inference over a measured quantity; this one changed an input and watched what moved. The opportunistic comparison -- two captures that happened to differ -- pointed exactly the wrong way, because nothing controlled what else differed between them. One designed capture settled it against its author's expectation. Not settled: finding 3, still with no surviving cause; the clock origin, which they are taking next and which every ratio and count in this account survives; the ~1.0-1.2 menu residual; the allowance's grep trigger. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018AHUQvXGyNcKonSEWsgWcX
Authored decisions
Everything here is a decision we made, not something the disc said. It is
hand-written, committed, and survives a re-export — unlike export/, which is
regenerated wholesale and must never be hand-edited.
Every entry carries a why. When the RE agent decodes the real answer, delete
the entry and let the exporter emit it; that deletion is the measure of
progress.
See docs/FORMAT.md for the schemas and docs/BLOCKED.md for which HANDOFF
question each placeholder is standing in for.