From a60ada782f55d2d61738a12833b55baa447be132 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: arcattack Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2026 10:48:48 -0500 Subject: [PATCH] operator-console KB: record what survives of the 1995 console (BTCNSL.CPP message defs; the Macintosh clue) The changelog line in game/original/BT/BTCNSL.CPP -- '06/03/95 GAH Added corresponding Macintosh message definitions' -- implies the 1995 sysop station was a Mac application in a separate codebase, which explains its total absence from the pod-side archives. Recorded so the provenance question ('is our console a port or a recreation?') has a durable answer: wire-faithful recreation, from the surviving parser side. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) --- context/operator-console.md | 11 +++++++++++ 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+) diff --git a/context/operator-console.md b/context/operator-console.md index 0e20d51..fb47db1 100644 --- a/context/operator-console.md +++ b/context/operator-console.md @@ -16,6 +16,17 @@ open_questions: The system-operator station: build a mission, run a session, watch pods arrive, launch rounds. This is the piece the 1995 archive lost and we rebuilt. +**What survives of the original, and why so little:** the console APPLICATION is absent from every +archive (and Route A is closed). What we have is the pod's half of the conversation -- +`game/original/BT/BTCNSL.CPP` (orig. `cnslmsgs.cpp`, one of the ~10 surviving BT game `.cpp`), +defining the Console* messages the game sends TO the console (MechKilled / MechDamaged / +ScoreUpdate / TeamScoreUpdate / DeathWithoutHonor / EndMission) -- plus the engine's receive-side +handlers (egg / RunMission / StopMission). Its changelog line *"06/03/95 GAH -- Added +corresponding Macintosh message definitions"* implies the 1995 sysop station was a **Macintosh +application**, a separate codebase that was never in the pod build tree -- which is why no archive +has it. `btconsole.py`/`btoperator.py` are therefore a wire-faithful RECREATION built from the +surviving parser side (+ BT_NET_PROBE against the real exe), not a port of the lost program. + > **Sysop-facing instructions live in `docs/OPERATOR_GUIDE.md`.** This file is the > engineering description — how it is built and where it breaks.