jeepnut24 Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 I have a question that came to mind. Do we have any original source for 2600 atari games? There is a lot of talk about finding protos and semi-finished copies of games, yet very little on the original source code. To me it would be interesting to see some old kernels and how the old schoolers delt with the 2600 hardware. It seems to me that some of the source would be floating around out there. Maybe Im just crazy though. You can learn alot from others source code though. I seem to work better when I can print source out and make notes on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Here is the source for Solaris. solsrc.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NovaXpress Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Once he figures out Solaris, then he might be ready for Video Olympics I assume? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 I have a question that came to mind. Do we have any original source for 2600 atari games? Take a look at the AtariAge - Atari 2600 Programming page. There you will find a disassembly of Combat. Also you will see the original source code to Dragonfire that was transcribed by Bob Smith himself. Alos take a look at the MiniDig. They might not be the original source code but they are disassemblies and are just as good...IMO. Also Manuel has a list of recent disassemblies that were uploaded to [stella]. Unfortunately the archives are down at the moment so this is the only way to get them now The list I have consists of... [Activision] Kaboom! Pitfall! River Raid Star Master [Atari] Adventure Air-Sea Battle Berzerk Combat Indy500 Outlaw Solaris Surround [Coleco] Donkey Kong [imagic]...these are original sources transcribed Dragonfire Moonsweeper Riddle of the Sphinx [Tigervision] Jawbreaker [uS Games] Space Jockey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted February 13, 2005 Author Share Posted February 13, 2005 Yeah, Ive seen the solaris source and combat source. Thanks for the links Debro. Disassembly is nice, I just thought it would be both entertaining and educational to see source for more of the classic titles. See how is they solved the problems of the 2600 differantly then than now. How they opptomized etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEBRO Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Yeah, Ive seen the solaris source and combat source. Thanks for the links Debro. Disassembly is nice, I just thought it would be both entertaining and educational to see source for more of the classic titles. See how is they solved the problems of the 2600 differantly then than now. How they opptomized etc... I agree. This is why I started disassembling games. I thought it was interesting to see a form of Thomas' .skipDraw in Berzerk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Yeah, Ive seen the solaris source and combat source. Thanks for the links Debro. Disassembly is nice, I just thought it would be both entertaining and educational to see source for more of the classic titles. See how is they solved the problems of the 2600 differantly then than now. How they opptomized etc... Dennis is being a little modest here...he comments disassemblies as a hobby, kind of like a cooler, geekier, and more productive version of doing a crossword puzzle. I haven't dived much into his work but it seems like he does a great job of it. A well-commented disassembly would let you see how they solved problems and optimized...now the true source would probably have a lot of flavor of the original author that's been lost, in the sense of funny comments or observations, or comments that don't match what the code actually ends up doing, and possibly commented out functional sections. So you're right that it would be cooler...but don't totally discount disassemblies. Frankly, despite coding a game, I'm still terrible at reading other people's source. Mostly because I have very week assembly skills, so even obvious half-tricks looks like rocket science to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted February 13, 2005 Author Share Posted February 13, 2005 Yeah, Ive seen the solaris source and combat source. Thanks for the links Debro. Disassembly is nice, I just thought it would be both entertaining and educational to see source for more of the classic titles. See how is they solved the problems of the 2600 differantly then than now. How they opptomized etc... Dennis is being a little modest here...he comments disassemblies as a hobby, kind of like a cooler, geekier, and more productive version of doing a crossword puzzle. I haven't dived much into his work but it seems like he does a great job of it. A well-commented disassembly would let you see how they solved problems and optimized...now the true source would probably have a lot of flavor of the original author that's been lost, in the sense of funny comments or observations, or comments that don't match what the code actually ends up doing, and possibly commented out functional sections. So you're right that it would be cooler...but don't totally discount disassemblies. Frankly, despite coding a game, I'm still terrible at reading other people's source. Mostly because I have very week assembly skills, so even obvious half-tricks looks like rocket science to me. I wasn't trying to discount disassemblies at all. I just thought it would be interesting to see how they tackled the 2600 in the 80's. Thats all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cybergoth Posted February 13, 2005 Share Posted February 13, 2005 Hi there! Also Manuel has a list of recent disassemblies that were uploaded to [stella]. My archive of source code for (31!) original games is still online It's also always good to ask on stella if you're interested in a particular source, as someone might already have what you're looking for, even when it's not in this archive :wink: Greetings, Manuel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 I wasn't trying to discount disassemblies at all. I just thought it would be interesting to see how they tackled the 2600 in the 80's. Thats all. Aargh, I don't think you get my point...a well-commented dissablies LETS YOU SEE how they tackled the 2600 in the 80s. If someone has taken the time to figure out what all the code is doing, then we can see what solutions they used for the problems of that kind of programming. Though for the reasons I mentioned, the "real" sourcecode would be cooler. But you seem to think there's some fundamental difference between the two, and there's not. You lose ROM and RAM location labels and comments ,that's all you lose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Tomlin Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 You lose ROM and RAM location labels and comments, that's all you lose. Not that they commented much back in those days. Especially when you had a 40-column or less terminal (like an Apple ][) and using comments would cause lines to wrap. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted February 14, 2005 Author Share Posted February 14, 2005 I wasn't trying to discount disassemblies at all. I just thought it would be interesting to see how they tackled the 2600 in the 80's. Thats all. Aargh, I don't think you get my point...a well-commented dissablies LETS YOU SEE how they tackled the 2600 in the 80s. If someone has taken the time to figure out what all the code is doing, then we can see what solutions they used for the problems of that kind of programming. Though for the reasons I mentioned, the "real" sourcecode would be cooler. But you seem to think there's some fundamental difference between the two, and there's not. You lose ROM and RAM location labels and comments ,that's all you lose. I don't really think there is a fundamental differance between the two. I just think it would be nice to see some of the original source along with notes and comments etc.. that go along with it. I guess more for the collector side than the programmer side is where Im viewing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kisrael Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 I don't really think there is a fundamental differance between the two. I just think it would be nice to see some of the original source along with notes and comments etc.. that go along with it. I guess more for the collector side than the programmer side is where Im viewing this. Ok, I agree with you to that extent...it's not to see how they solved the problems, but just to get a feel for their personalities in comments and labels and what not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 the only thing i could see from the labels when i transcribed the riddle of the sphinx was that the author apparently didn't have an assembler that supported local labels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 14, 2005 Share Posted February 14, 2005 Yes, comments like "ALL THIS IS VERY WRONG" or "WHAT DOES THIS DO??" in a final code a really funny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeepnut24 Posted February 14, 2005 Author Share Posted February 14, 2005 I don't know about you, but I feel there is a lot of personality in code and the comments that go with it. Sure we aren't talking about OO code with tons of line, english language variables and comments throughout, but you can still get a good idea. The collector side of me would love to see original notes and comments that go with the finished products. I come from a totally differant programming perspective than someone coding in the 80's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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