PlayerStatus (dirty-gated, blits an 8-bit pixmap -- but the widget map for a
DIRTY run contains no playerStatus at all; it belongs to cameraInit and never
exists in a mech cockpit) and heat-driven redraw (a BT_FORCE_FIRE run came
back clean). Seven hypotheses killed by measurement so far.
It is a heisenbug: dirty on ~3 runs in 25, and every run since instrumenting
has been clean. The pattern tracks STARTUP LOG VOLUME -- the three dirty
runs all had the lighter conf, and a chatty trace slows init enough to
suppress it. The blit trace is therefore narrowed to fire only for pixmaps
landing on a non-palette port, which is near-silent when nothing is wrong.
That narrowed trace caught real traffic: 17x17 PixelMap8 blits onto
Mfd1/2/3 -- 8-bit pixmaps on single-bit planes. They render correctly, so
the library thresholds them; not the culprit but the right bug class.
Also banked a hunting recipe, because two detector traps cost runs: Eng1 == 0
means the cockpit is not up (not dirty), and an early capture during mission
start caught a full 3-D cockpit frame with the gauges at pod positions
(Eng1 62927) that did not recur over the next minute. BTDPL.INI is in the
mount and DPLRenderer is linked, so the dPL path may emit a frame during
launch even with L4VIDEO=OFF -- first evidence the 3-D path produces
anything, and explicitly NOT a claim that btl4vid works.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The reconstructed tree now produces a runnable binary with the authentic
1995 toolchain (BC4.52 / tlink32 / DPMI32):
- BTL4.CPP main TU reconstructed from the 4.11 Ghidra decomp (FUN_0040109c)
+ the 4.10 binary's own string pool + surviving RPL4TOOL.CPP house style;
probe_main.cpp scaffold retired (BTL4.NOTES.md documents every decoded call)
- L4NET.CPP staged: L4NetworkManager ctor/dtor + 10 vtable-pulled virtuals
(standalone-benign ones no-op, network ones Fail loudly) + NetNub client
globals (Net_Common_Ptr=NULL routes L4File to its plain-DOS path)
- build410.sh: libs now built in the AUTHENTIC makefile member order
(MUNGA.MAK / mungal4.mak / BT.MAK / BTL4.MAK). Order is load-bearing:
tlink emits static-init records in module pull order, and alphabetical
order booted into a null-vptr crash (IcomManager::ClassDerivations
constructing before parent NetworkClient::ClassDerivations). Also fixed
stage_link to the proven 32-bit lib set (SOSDBXC+SOSMBXC, no WATTCPLG)
- BOXTREE.HPP MemoryBlock unify, BTL4GRND notify stubs, remaining engine
backfills (audio/gauge/resource/stream TUs) that closed the deep ledger
Smoke test (DOSBox-X + 32RTM, copy of the pod BT tree, our exe swapped in):
BattleTech v4.10
BTL4Application::BTL4Application
l4net.cpp(22): L4NetworkManager -- l4net.cpp not yet reconstructed
Static init, main, -egg parse, BTL4.RES load (version 1.0.6 check passes),
ApplicationManager and the BTL4Application ctor chain all execute real
reconstructed code; boot halts at the first staged Fail() as designed.
Next brick: the real l4net.cpp body.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>