sndj v0.12

The performance release: LIVE mode grows up into a real clip launcher.

• A+B queues, launches and stops. On a populated cell A+B queues that chain on its track (launching right away from stopped); on the cell the track is playing it queues that track's stop instead — it never re-triggers the chain you're hearing. Queued chains take over at the playing track's phrase boundary; cues on silent tracks fire at the next bar (16 rows) so they land in time with the others.
• Plain B is edit-only: insert a chain on an empty cell (A+B then launches it), inert on occupied cells — a stray tap can't trigger or overwrite anything mid-set.
• The grid tells you what's happening: a steady ▸ on each track's playing cell, a flashing ▸ on a cued chain, an X on a track draining toward a queued stop. On SONG every playing track gets its own playhead triangle — 8 independent heads, nothing painted over the numbers.
• The launcher is on the map: A+d-pad navigates from LIVE as if on SONG, L/R and Y+←/→ switch tracks, Select still round-trips.
• Start plays the arrangement at the song cursor from every screen — drill into a chain or phrase and Start sounds the context you're looking at; tracks enter at the chain covering the cursor row (the LSDJ feel).
• Fixed: the first LIVE launch after power-on started all eight tracks (boot-zeroed pending slots read as "chain 0 queued") — now seeded at boot, cleared on stop, and pinned by a 20-assert regression check.
• HELP is 8 pages: instrument types and the samples/memory story join as pages 4–5, the command reference moves to 6–7.
• CLONE defaults to DEEP on fresh carts.

Still awaiting hardware bring-up: sync/MIDI rigs and the FXPak SRAM matrix (CLAUDE.md §4.4).

Full details in CHANGELOG.md.

ROM stamp: 0.12 de585a9 — check the boot splash to verify your flash.

sndj v0.11

The hardware release. v0.1's first real-silicon session found the kind of bug
emulators cannot show you — this release fixes it, and brings the browser
ecosystem to full strength.

Hardware fixes (the big one)

• Glitch-proofed APU mailbox. On real hardware, an SPC700 port read that
  collides with the S-CPU's write returns mixed bits (no emulator models
  this). Sample uploads could shear by 3 bytes (garbled instruments) or end
  on a phantom zero (silent instruments) — differently on every reset, since
  the two clock domains drift phase per boot. The driver now double-reads
  port 0 and accepts only the expected round counter; the CPU resyncs and
  retries a failed upload; the BRR LOOP bit ships in-stream (one bulk
  session per sample). Instruments now play correctly on real consoles.
• SRAM powers up as $FF: option bytes are seeded at format and
  range-checked at boot — no more palette 7 greeting every reset.
• The APU? dead-mailbox indicator actually fires now (its heartbeat used
  an exact-frame gate that ~30 fps screens could miss forever).
• New founding HARDWARE.md documents the errata; CLAUDE.md gains
  invariant #13 (glitch-guarded port reads).

The tracker

• Tables are V · TSP · CMD — per tick: voice level, signed transpose,
  and one command through the shared executor. Zero = no change per column.
• Button timing options, persisted on the cart: KEY DELAY, KEY RATE,
  TAP WIN.
• Y+↑/↓ pages everywhere: chains, phrases, kits and tables all use the
  one family gesture. KIT's number is a readout again.
• HELP screen (hold A alone ~2.5 s from any screen), generated from
  help.txt + the command CSV; KIT moved below PHRASE on the map; splash
  shows LOADING AUDIO during the sample transfer.
• PROJECT drops NEW (FILES owns it); layout polish across OPTIONS, PROJECT,
  KIT, TABLE, INSTR (inverted cursor values everywhere).

The browser ecosystem (user-tools/)

• The reference sequencer in sndj.js: a JS mirror of the whole console
  engine driving the sample-accurate S-DSP model, ~100× realtime.
• spcexport.html: listen in the browser, render WAV offline (with
  loop detection), or export a standard .spc — the song's register
  stream + samples + a tiny SPC700 replayer, playable in any SPC player.
• savetool.html: per-song play button (drop the ROM alongside),
  read-only song viewer, rename, free-bytes readout.
• als2sndj.html: Ableton .als / .mid / MML ⇄ .sndj, both
  directions, with real note-offs and tempo import (ALS.md documents it).

Full details in CHANGELOG.md.

Still awaiting hardware bring-up: sync/MIDI rigs (two-console cable, ESP32
bridge) and the full FXPak SRAM matrix.

Save-format note: table content saved by v0.1 predates the V·TSP·CMD
layout — re-enter any table rows from old songs (blank tables are
unaffected).

sndj v0.1

The first release of sndj — an LSDJ-inspired music tracker for the
Super Nintendo / Super Famicom, written in 65816 + SPC700 assembly.
Third sibling of smsggdj
and genmddj: same data
model, same two-modifier control grammar, same screen map — built
around what only the S-DSP can do.

Flash sndj-0.1.sfc to an FXPak/SD2SNES or open it in Mesen 2 /
ares / bsnes. Tempo and pitch are region-free by construction (the
audio unit has its own crystal) — PAL only changes the picture.

Highlights

• 8-track sequencer — phrases, chains, a 128-row song grid,
  journalled 16-slot saves in cart SRAM, LIVE mode with quantised
  chain launching and hardware ENVX meters.
• Six instrument types — SMP (pool samples), KIT (drum kits),
  WAV (drawn wavetables), NSE (noise), SLICE (chop any sample
  into up to 16 parts at zero audio-RAM cost — the note picks the
  slice) and KARP (Karplus-Strong on the echo hardware: the room
  becomes a plucked string, per-note-tuned by the FIR filter — a
  technique no commercial SNES soundtrack ever shipped).
• The room as an instrument — echo delay with its live audio-RAM
  cost on screen, feedback, per-voice sends with channel gates, and
  8 patchable FIR curves; reconfiguration runs an erratum-safe
  driver sequence.
• One groove, two steps — the song's feel is a public pair of
  tick counts (6/6 straight, 8/4 swing) and G xy writes it live
  from a phrase.
• 24-command language shared by phrases and tables, sibling
  semantics preserved.
• Sync & MIDI takeover (console side) — follow a sibling master
  or the Ableton Link ESP32 bridge, pulse out to Volca/PO gear, or
  play sndj as an 8-voice BRR module over MIDI. Hardware bring-up of
  the cables/rigs is still pending; these pass their emulated gates.
• Browser ecosystem, zero toolchain — user-tools/patcher.html:
  sample pool with SoundFont drag-import and bit-exact BRR audition,
  slice designer with draggable cuts, kit builder, boot instruments,
  FIR designer with a live response plot (including a KARP pluck
  prototype), palettes, ROM + audio-RAM budget meters.
  user-tools/savetool.html manages cart saves and .sndj songs.

Full history in CHANGELOG.md. Built and verified by
35 emulator-in-the-loop test suites + golden screenshots; the boot
splash shows V0.1 B239FB9 so you can confirm the flash took.