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The physical carrier

This is the first disc in an eighteen-disc set that was read from the plastic rather than from an image file, so this page exists and the other seventeen have no equivalent. Everything here is a transcription from the object, with the direction it was read from recorded alongside it, because on a physical survey the method of reading can enter the datum.

Matrix ring, data side

Read through the hub from the label side:

CDD2971
/CS090011
MASTERED BY NIMBUS

No IFPI codes of any kind. No mould SID (IFPI plus four characters), no mastering SID (IFPI L plus three digits).

Record that as a measurement, with its asymmetry stated: the absence proves nothing on its own, because adoption of the SID scheme was gradual from 1993–94 onwards, and a 1993 pressing may simply predate it at this plant. The presence of a SID would have proved a pressing no earlier than the scheme. This is the first plastic-side datum in the set, and it becomes useful the day a second disc from the same plant carries one.

The ambiguous character, and why it is recorded as a method note

One character of the matrix is ambiguous between / and \, because the ring read from the data side is mirrored, and a mirrored slash is a backslash. The silkscreen on the label side reads /CS090011 unambiguously, so the most economical reading is that the matrix says / too.

Both the reading and the direction it was taken from are recorded here, because this is the plastic-side version of the Nu trap exactly: on the Superfrog disc 4E 75 read as Nu and invented libraries that do not exist, and the defence in both cases is the same — record how you read it, not only what you read.

A second copy agrees, digit for digit

A photograph of a different copy of this disc, published on MobyGames (4572381-alfred-chicken-amiga-cd32-media.jpg), was compared against the copy in hand. It carries the same CDD2971, the same /CS090011 in both the matrix ring and the silkscreen, the same MASTERED BY NIMBUS, and the same CD-ROM logo variant.

That upgrades both identifiers from properties of this copy to properties of the pressing run, which is the distinction that matters when the next Nimbus disc turns up. It also independently confirms the / reading of the silkscreen.

Label side, silkscreen

AMIGA CD 32
ALFRED CHICKEN
[CD-ROM logo, the variant in which "ROM" is encircled by the image of a disc]
MINDSCAPE
Twilight
[standard Compact Disc logo]
Copyright (C) 1993 Twilight. Alfred Chicken is a trademark of Twilight.
All rights reserved.  /CS090011

The CD-ROM logo is a variant, not the one seen everywhere. Logos are artefacts of licensing and of manufacture, and which variant a disc carries is a function of what licence the publisher held and when. It is described here in words because no image can ever carry it and the set has no way to reconstruct it afterwards.

What is readable from here, before the drive is opened

Publisher and developer are separable, for the first time in the set

The copyright and the trademark belong to the developer: Copyright (C) 1993 Twilight. Alfred Chicken is a trademark of Twilight. Mindscape is the label and nothing more.

This is the first disc of the set on which the two are separable from the artwork alone, which makes every artefact assignable to one of them rather than to a single undifferentiated entity. On Myth, System 3 was both, and the separation was impossible.

The four-owner assignment this makes possible is carried through in docs/10-code-and-engine.md; the filled-in version is:

ring who, on this disc where it is read what it turned out to be
game build Twilight (copyright and trademark) executables, RCS keywords, format strings JJS, Hard0:alfred/rcs/, SAS/C 6.00
label Mindscape PVD publisher field, artwork Mindscape in the PVD, confirmed
premastering / ISO image Abersoft PVD data preparer field Abersoft - ISOCD 1.04 by Pantaray, Inc. USA -
glass master and pressing Nimbus matrix ring, absence of SID MASTERED BY NIMBUS, no IFPI

Four owners, four observable slots, all four filled from the disc. That is the first time open question 14 has had a complete row.

The year on the print is 1993, and it is the game's copyright

1993 is the copyright of the game, not the date of the master. The CD32 launched in September 1993, so a master in the second half of 1993 is consistent, and step 39 should confirm it rather than falsify it.

It did. The PVD reads 1993-12-06 17:54:10, the .TM block it carries reads Copyright © 1993 - Commodore Electronics Ltd., and the shipped c/setpatch carries $VER: setpatch 40.14 (7.10.93), which puts a hard floor under the master at 1993-10-07. See docs/05-timestamps.md.

Two identifiers in the ring, one of which is also on the artwork

/CS090011 appears in both places — glass master and silkscreen — and those are two different manufacturing steps that had to agree. CDD2971 appears only in the ring.

The economical reading is that the first belongs to the title and the second to the plant. That is an inference, and it is testable on a second Nimbus disc: both would change, but the format would repeat. The MobyGames copy above tests a different thing — that both are stable across copies — and passes.

The third number, and what the disc said about it

The brief asked for three identifiers side by side: /CS090011 from the artwork, an EAN from the packaging barcode, and the MCN read from subchannel Q.

  • /CS090011 — present, in two places.
  • EAN from packaging — not available: no packaging accompanied this copy. Recorded as absent rather than guessed.
  • MCN from subchannel Q — 0000000000000, thirteen ASCII zeros, with MCVAL set. This is the measurement the brief said would have retroactive consequences, and it is written up in full in docs/02-toc-and-subchannel.md.