Pocket Physics is a 2008 Nintendo DS drawing and physics sandbox by 0xtob. This fork preserves the historical repository and adds a public, reproducible research workflow for release archaeology, modern source builds, bug fixes, and in-ROM performance measurement.
The archive separates the release reference, historical reconstruction, toolchain modernization, and measured optimization. This keeps binary identity, source provenance, behavioral equivalence, and performance as independently testable claims.
| Track | Current result | SHA-256 or target |
|---|---|---|
| Public v0.6 reference | Verified 2008 release ROM and extracted ARM payloads | 9e0f44b5bc817ea0c91ab889abcbc64c0f09f2439208679f67542a77bce4de64 |
| Historical source reconstruction | Two clean source builds reproduce ARM7, ARM9, and the ROM byte for byte | 9e0f44b5bc817ea0c91ab889abcbc64c0f09f2439208679f67542a77bce4de64 |
| Archival repack control | Historical ndstool reproduces the reference ROM from verified payloads | 9e0f44b5bc817ea0c91ab889abcbc64c0f09f2439208679f67542a77bce4de64 |
| Modern source port | v0.6 C++ source on checksum-locked BlocksDS dependencies | 93776d717fa58da9b5d70aee8240b0a0a569e8411817e26d580d28d6a408ff06 |
| Improved source port | Modern port with measured correctness and performance changes | cbfc4984533a427c1e724096750fb132be9f9f6ff2e30e8dc2fa1eae1c7a7c45 |
The source reconstruction is the canonical exact build. It starts from
checksum-locked historical tools and source, never from the release ROM or
extracted payloads. Recovered executable regions are reviewed ARM/Thumb
mnemonics with symbols and relocations, not embedded bytes or .word streams.
The archival repack remains only as an independent packaging control.
Requirements are Git with full history, Docker, Python 3, curl, and unzip.
All downloaded files, container bases, package archives, and emulator releases
are pinned in the input lock.
git clone https://github.com/lpla/pocketphysics.git
cd pocketphysics
tools/repro/test_all.shThe full command audits the reconstruction corpus, performs two clean byte-identical historical source builds, checks the independent repack control, performs two clean modern and improved builds, and runs three in-ROM workloads in melonDS. The emulator watchdog is host-side process control only; every reported performance value is read from the ROM's cascaded ARM9 timers.
Individual entry points:
tools/repro/test_v06_exact.sh # exact historical source build, twice
tools/repro/test_v06_repack_control.sh # independent packaging control
tools/repro/test_v06_repro.sh # modern source build, twice
tools/repro/test_v06_perf.sh # improved source build, twice
tools/repro/test_v06_inrom.sh # primary melonDS comparison
tools/repro/test_optimization_screening.sh # melonDS profile attributionDeSmuME remains available as a supplementary compatibility experiment by
setting EMULATORS=desmume; it is not used to accept or reject optimizations.
- Reproducibility model and build identities
- Historical reconstruction method and release address map
- In-ROM benchmark protocol
- Optimization and rejection study
- Physical Nintendo DS collection procedure
- Tracked binary and external-input provenance
- Published benchmark evidence
Published datasets under research/results bind every
measurement to a source revision, emulator configuration, ROM hash, workload
checksum, and machine-checked assertion set.
Pocket Physics is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3. See
gpl-3.0.txt. Third-party inputs retain their own licenses and
are downloaded from the pinned sources recorded in the provenance files.