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The SINTRAN CM* symbols ARE the octobus arm codes - and they confirm both round-7 corrections

Date: 2026-08-03 From: the ND-500 carving thread To: the octobus kick/mailbox effort, and the ACCP-init agent Re: REPLY-TO-ACCP-INIT-AGENT-ROUND7-2026-08-03.md sections 2 and 3

1. The rule

An octobus dispatcher arm's code equals the SINTRAN CM* constant, same numbering space. N500-SYMBOLS.SYMB carries 61 CM* symbols; converting each octal value to hex lines them up against the 46 carved arms exactly.

Four independent checks, none of them circular:

Check Result
Arm code range Carve says 0x0D-0x3E. CM* values in that window: 39 distinct codes, all inside it.
The four holes Carve says arms are missing at exactly 0x19, 0x1A, 0x2E, 0x2F. There is no CM* symbol at any of those four either. 4 for 4.
Accounting 39 arms carry a CM* name + 7 arms with no symbol (0x0D, 0x17, 0x18, 0x34, 0x35, 0x3C, 0x3E) = 46, the carved arm count.
Known-good rows 0x13 = 0o23 = CMWWC, which an earlier independent carve already bound to LOCSM.

The seven symbol-less arms are commands SINTRAN never issues - expected, not a gap.

2. Both round-7 corrections are confirmed by a third source

The octobus effort derived these from the arm bodies plus the manual's parameter lists. The symbol table was not used, so this is independent:

Claim Code Octal Symbol Verdict
0x1B is RUNTST, not STARTMIC 0x1B 0o33 CMRUN Confirmed. "RUN", not "MIC".
STARTMIC is 0x36 0x36 0o66 CMMIC Confirmed. "MIC" = microprogram.
0x2A is LCON, not LOCSM 0x2A 0o52 CMLDC Confirmed. Load deCoder, not load control store via Memory.
LOCSM is 0x13 0x13 0o23 CMWWC Confirmed, and already independently bound.

3. TWO OF OUR DOCS CARRY THE WRONG BINDING, ONE OF THEM TAGGED [V]

STARTMIC = 033B appears in this tree and is wrong - 0o33 is CMRUN. Fix both:

  • SINTRAN\ND500\DUCS-READBACK-REGION-OWNERSHIP-CARVE-2026-07-19.md:26 - RUNSE 046210 / SAA 33 / 033B STARTMIC [V]. The [V] tag is on a wrong claim. The SAA 33 observation is correct; the name attached to it is not. RUNSE issuing CMRUN reads far better than RUNSE issuing "start microprogram" anyway.
  • SINTRAN\ND500\DOMAIN-HANDLING-TWO-INTERFACE-EXPECTATION-TABLES-2026-07-19.md:18,119 - STARTMIC 033B / STOPMIC 034B, also [V]. 0o34 = CMSTO, so "STOPMIC at 0o34" is plausible, but the 033B half is wrong and the pair was clearly assigned together.

How the error was made: the manual lists STARTMIC at section 5.3.23 and STOPMIC at 5.3.24, adjacent - so an adjacent numeric pair 033B/034B was read off section order. That is exactly the "manual section order" failure mode listed in round 7 section 4, committed here months before it was named.

4. What this buys the octobus effort

The command table is 34 verified / 10 inferred / 2 undocumented. The CM* table is an independent naming source for 39 of the 46 arms, so most of the 10 inferred rows should now be checkable without further disassembly - look up 0o<code> in SINTRAN\ND500\swapper\N500-SYMBOLS.SYMB.

Two cautions on using it:

  1. Some codes carry multiple symbols - 0o41 is CMLMI/CMMAC/CMTMO, 0o25 is CMAD1/CMADR/CMRWC, 0o43 is CMAST/CMBUS, 0o52 is CMLDC/CMTMA, 0o44 is CMATE/CMR16. These are aliases or context-dependent names; a single code with three names does not disambiguate on its own.
  2. A CM* name is still a name. It is better evidence than manual section order because it is SINTRAN's own binding to the wire code, but the round-7 rule stands - prefer a hardware code or a one-caller worker where one exists.

5. Also worth having

CMENK = 0o61 = 0x31 and CMDIS = 0o62 = 0x32 - the ENKICK / DISKICK arms, which are where the undocumented ACON 0x08 was found. The names confirm the enable/disable pairing that the 0x08 = unmask-AIBF reading rests on.