TFX CD extraction and sector audit

The supplied BIN/CUE describes one Mode 1 data track and fourteen CD audio tracks. The ISO identifies the volume as TFX, publisher OCEAN, and records its creation as 15 December 1993, 11:13:05 (as stored, without timezone conversion). It was prepared with the CEQUADRAT ISO 9660 formatter.

Extracted files

Data-track ISO (previously generated; not currently retained): 19,055 × 2,048-byte payloads, including 453 zero-filled sectors after the 18,602-sector declared filesystem. The audio pregap is excluded.
Audio directory: tracks 02–15, lossless FLAC at level 8, the encoder's highest standard compression preset; 44,100 Hz, stereo, 16-bit. Tracks follow the supplied CUE's INDEX 01 boundaries exactly. No normalisation, resampling, silence trimming, or drive-offset correction was applied.
track-02-pregap.flac separately preserves the 150 sectors between the last Mode 1 sector and track 02's INDEX 01. It is two seconds long, mostly silent; its last 459 stereo sample frames (approximately 10.4 ms) are nonzero. This is not an additional indexed track in the supplied CUE.

No intermediate WAV files or duplicate audio archives are retained. The original BIN and CUE are unchanged.

Verification and findings

Every one of the 19,055 Mode 1 sectors was checked:

Correct 12-byte synchronisation pattern and Mode 1 identifier.
Correct sequential BCD sector address, including the standard 150-frame offset.
Valid 32-bit EDC against the header and payload.
All eight reserved bytes zero.
Both ECC P and Q parity fields match their sector contents.

The first 16 sectors' system-area payloads are zero. All 453 payload sectors beyond the declared ISO filesystem are also zero. No unexplained information was found in the inspected non-payload fields or these padding regions. This is a sector format audit, not an exhaustive investigation of files or filesystem slack.

The image stores 2,352 bytes per sector, and no separate subchannel dump was supplied. P–W subchannels therefore cannot be investigated from these files. The extra 304 bytes in each Mode 1 sector are headers, EDC, reserved bytes and ECC, not subchannels. The valid parity and zero reserved bytes show no anomalies in those fields; this does not establish what the physical disc's subchannels held.

Each FLAC was encoded with --verify, then independently decoded to raw PCM and SHA-256 compared against its exact source BIN interval. All comparisons passed. SHA-256 manifest covers the original BIN/CUE, ISO and all FLACs; run sha256sum -c analysis/disc-sha256.txt from the project root to check them. Machine-readable audit additionally records PCM hashes, exact sample counts, sector boundaries and audit results.

Audio layout

LBA ranges below are inclusive; durations are rounded for display. Sample counts are exact stereo frames, not counts of individual channel samples.

File	LBA range	Duration	Sample frames
track-02-pregap.flac	19055–19204	00:02.000	88,200
track-02.flac	19205–41212	04:53.440	12,940,704
track-03.flac	41213–62108	04:38.613	12,286,848
track-04.flac	62109–85513	05:12.067	13,762,140
track-05.flac	85514–105552	04:27.187	11,782,932
track-06.flac	105553–127009	04:46.093	12,616,716
track-07.flac	127010–148666	04:48.760	12,734,316
track-08.flac	148667–171627	05:06.147	13,501,068
track-09.flac	171628–192811	04:42.453	12,456,192
track-10.flac	192812–200403	01:41.227	4,464,096
track-11.flac	200404–207995	01:41.227	4,464,096
track-12.flac	207996–225936	03:59.213	10,549,308
track-13.flac	225937–230920	01:06.453	2,930,592
track-14.flac	230921–252025	04:41.400	12,409,740
track-15.flac	252026–257009	01:06.453	2,930,592

Filesystem notes

The plain ISO 9660 filesystem has no Joliet or Rock Ridge extension. Alongside TFX installation data, it contains INFERNO and INFERNO.HD directories and TUNES/INTRO.ADL, INTRO.RLD, and INTRO.SCC. See the directory listing.

Bundled Inferno preview

This is a non-interactive cinematic preview, not a playable mission demo. The root INFERNO.BAT clears the DID environment variable, changes to INFERNO, and runs start trash4. That directory has its own START.EXE, engine executable (still named TFX.DAT) and DID.DAT. INFERNO.HD contains an installer and packed payload for a hard-disk installation of the preview.

The intact December archive has 60 resources: 46 animations, seven ILBM still pictures, four presentation graphs and three OSL music files. There are no 3D models, terrain or mission resources. The launched trash4.par graph contains 52 animation nodes, seven still-image nodes, a skip-control reset and a branch; there is no game-launch or external-command node. Every referenced visual resource resolves inside the preview archive. Its closing card explicitly calls it a selection of graphic sequences and music from Inferno, advertised for early 1994.

An exact decoded-content comparison against all three TFX CD archives finds one shared resource: the DID logo animation (anim/didt0.256 in the September TFX catalogue, ID 7fd98535; preview ID 79514235). Each archive stores its own copy; the preview does not need to read TFX's main archive. The Inferno cockpit artwork retained in TFX's archive is a separate matter: neither cockpit drawing program nor lower bitmap matches a resource in this preview. See the cockpit provenance notes. This check establishes the preview's content and packaging, without analysing the full Inferno game.

Reproduction

tools/extract_disc.py performs the extraction and audit using Python 3 and the flac command-line encoder (1.5.0 for this run). It refuses to overwrite an existing ISO; use a fresh output directory for a new extraction. The script uses up to four concurrent audio encoders.

Other versions

See the version comparison for the alternate CD and floppy copies, exact duplicates, installer differences, and the provisional analysis baseline.

Preview executable versus preview assets

The cinematic-only archive does not imply a minimal movie-player executable. The preview carries a distinct early TFX-engine build, including player flight and renderer code, all three TFX aircraft presets and the normal effect/high-score tables. Its preset value writes align with the November floppy engine. See the engine-build comparison; the full Inferno game remains a separate investigation.