Theron’s Quest: real-data inventory

This page records the local media identities used by Firestaff’s Theron bring-up. It separates the PC Engine CD data track from the related Track 19 ISO files so a valid-looking image cannot be attached to the wrong loader.

Authenticated local media

TQJP19.iso is not the JP Track 02 image. Its f9f069… identity belongs to the Track 19 metadata readers. The JP TQJP02End.iso file is a distinct 149-sector, hash-identified Track 02 payload, but the supplied bytes are zero-filled; its identity and length do not establish dungeon-bank content, and file-backed campaign discovery now rejects it as unstartable. It must not be treated as a full six-megabyte Track 19 projection. The US distribution is the one that needs the TQUS19.iso plus TQUS02End.iso materialization step.

Real bindings currently admitted

• The raw US and JP Track 02 files have hash-verified startup bitmap spans, level-bank offsets, object/ground-reference receipts and HuC6280 bank-$1f disassembly bytes.
• The US and JP Track 19 ISOs, plus the supplied JP Rev. 1 raw Track 19 BIN, have hash-verified item-name, item-property, level-label and startup-envelope metadata receipts. The raw form retains its CUE-defined 224-sector pregap; only its following user-data sectors are normalized in memory for these ISO-addressed readers.
• The authentic US raw Track 19 BIN is now also staged locally. Its complete 2,922-sector post-pregap payload was compared sector-by-sector with TQUS19.iso; the probe also bound its decoded name/property bank against the authenticated US Track 02 dungeon-4 item source. The trailing 150 raw sectors are retained in the source file but are not part of the ISO view.
• The raw BIN palette windows are copied only after the exact regional hash and MODE1/2352 user-data mapping pass. The US assembled ISO has a separate direct-ISO palette path.
• The production viewport and dungeon handoff remain fail-closed. A byte span, palette-shaped window, or indexed atlas is not promoted to a dungeon, object, VDC/VCE consumer, HUD, or semantic level binding by itself.
• The production forcefield handoff retains the cross-checked numeric champion-record fields, but compiles out the unbound US names and titles. The explicit roster table remains available only to fixture/probe targets; JP startup names/titles are admitted only through the real JP cluster reader.
• The JP raw Track 02 champion cluster is independently receipt-bound at raw offset 0x0B3D98: eight newline/NUL-framed records decode their numeric fields from the A–P nibble representation. A wrong regional MD5, offset mutation or malformed field rejects the receipt.
• Later-level runtime receipts retain the retail resource frame length (LE16(+2)-5) and exact user-data end offset in addition to the block and payload hashes. The payload remains opaque until the HuC6280 consumer is bound.

Known placeholder boundaries

The following are intentionally not presented as real game data:

• procedural stone palettes and inferred V1 tile/material mappings;
• synthetic V2.2 shapes, HUD widgets and overlay pixels;
• inferred US roster names or JP names copied into the US route;
• fixture dungeon/object consumers and random generator placement;
• a host viewport draw without an authenticated HuC6280 $2600 RAM consumer and source-LBA join.

The source and capture requirements are tracked in TODO.md, especially THERON-PALETTE-ROUTE, THERON-BITMAP-ROUTE-PROVENANCE, THERON-V1-TRACK02-VRAM-CONSUMER and THERON-V1-HUC6280-RAM-CONSUMER. The provenance boundary follows the Theron’s Quest platform and Track 02 description in docs/DMWEB_REFERENCE.md and the local source-lock notes.