Decoded the structural framing of the Blastware waveform body — the bytes
between the 21-byte STRT record and the 26-byte file footer. The body is
a sequence of tagged variable-length blocks, NOT raw int16 LE. Five tag
types (10/20/00/30/40 NN) and their lengths are now confirmed against the
4-event May 2026 fixture bundle. Body splits cleanly into ~16 segments
(for a 1280-sample event) separated by 40 02 segment headers carrying a
monotonically incrementing uint32 LE counter at bytes [8:12].
What's done:
- minimateplus/waveform_codec.py — block walker, segment splitter, segment
header parser. decode_waveform_v2 is a stub returning None until the
byte-to-sample mapping is solved; client.py is unchanged.
- tests/test_waveform_codec.py — 31 tests covering block detection, lengths,
contiguous-walk, segment splitting, segment-header parsing, and counter
monotonicity. All pass.
- tests/fixtures/decode-re-5-8-26/ — bundled fixtures (4 events, BW binary
+ Blastware ASCII export each).
- docs/instantel_protocol_reference.md §7.6.1 — replaced retraction box
with the verified structural decoding plus an explicit list of what's
still open.
What's still open: the per-byte mapping inside 10 NN / 20 NN blocks. 96
channel-permutation × nibble-order × sign-convention combinations were
brute-force tested; none match BW's ASCII export to within ±1 ADC count.
The codec is more elaborate than uniform 4-bit deltas — likely a hybrid
variable-bit-width scheme with segment-anchor resync points. Next
recommended step: capture an event with a known calibration tone to pin
down magnitude scaling.
Walker also bails out partway through event-b (open issue documented in
both the module and the protocol reference).
Claude