atari2600land's Blog - Odyssey2 Odyssey

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I have been busy with the Odyssey 2 lately. Reading the booklets, playing the games, that sort of thing. It is interesting though how even though the Odyssey 2 never really made much of a dent into Atari, it sure does have a good homebrewing scene. Why do you think that is? When I started programming Odyssey 2, it took me a few tries to figure out what I was doing, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly.

That's not to say it's easy to program for, what with all the page division crap they put in there. But even though I tried other forms of assembly code with Pokemon Mini and a little bit of Atari 2600, I must say for all the features the Odyssey2 has, it's pretty easy to use them.

Take for instance, the letters. You get 12 on the screen at once (unless you are a wizard and can manipulate more than that like the guy who made Frogger). And 16 more in groups of characters called "quads." And with the cutting off of some of them, you can make some pretty good sprite-like things, like the robot things in Killer Bees.

I have a complete North American collection. (Well, I am missing some homebrews since I arrived fairly late into the homebrew scene). But I have the three board games. I even have Power Lords. But it's good to see that at least people are coming up with new ways to make Odyssey 2 games. Reading the videopac.nl forums, there's a few homebrews in development now, like one called "Dungeon of Eternity," and another I want called "Spaceman Splorf."

I need to find my collection of manuals. I had a fairly decent sized one, but they all went missing, much like some other important papers around this house. Or perhaps I make too much stuff and should cut down so I have less junk I made sitting around.

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/168/entry-15131-odyssey2-odyssey/