Forgot how much went in to the understanding of the 6502, a few years ago a buddy of mine tried to teach me the basics of it on his apple IIe but that was so long ago. That I find the only thing that sticks in my mind from his teachings was he called "counting the count" referring to cycle counting I think.
well I have read the online book "Assembly language for Beginners" at Atari archives online books and Andrew Davies Tutorials are next on my list of reading. I hope to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the inner workings of the 6502(7) Cpu and it's variants but who knows maybe at my age there is no hope at all .
I read somewhere that once you reach my age (39) that the mind does not retain Information as easily as it did when you are a child, so I might not be able to learn it at all like I thought I would.
But who knows I might surprise myself and actually be able to do somthing with what I can retain, it can't hurt to try.
Saturday I am going to continue my work on the 7800 custom Editor / front end to the tools for programming it.
Well I decided to try my hand at writing assembly for the 7800 (every ones gotta do something right ?).
I looked through the forum and found all the tools and docs I would ever need, as I was searching I found that the 2600 forum had a shed load of tools tied together from a member written IDE and I thought hmm why don't the 7800 folks got something like that ?.
So I decided to write one that would tie all the command line tools together in one IDE, so say if you wanted to view a disassembled ROM file you could go to tools and select Disasm and select the BIN file and the Distella tool would do its thing and the IDE could open it and display it in the editor window for you or in a seprate window from the editor.
I know that this is not needed but I felt that since I am basicly a lazy person I would like a tool to interface with all the commandline stuff for me.
This is just a rough draft of the IDE I am making, for the moment it is not usable but in a couple of weeks it should be ready for normal usage.
Things to do are:
1. build a help file system with all 7800 tech docs accessible from the editor
2. add a HEX converter to the interface (kinda like SIDE Kick)
3. add a couple of user assignable slots for external programs
4. get permission from the various tool owners to package the IDE and tools together in an installer
to help new programmers out with a single download from one spot instead of several spots.
that way it will be like a community DEV kit complete with Tools and Docs.
So in the comming days I will post pics and give updates as I go, I welcome all comments and suggestions good or bad makes no diffrence to me.
got to thinking that as a programmer, I really like Syntax Coloring and found a Free DLL for that purpose with a lot of cool built in functions to boot.
it features:
1. all the editing tools a text editor would ever need.
2. Synatx Coloring
3. Keyword list that can be set by the programmer (I will add keywords found in Basic to make it compat with Batari Basic)
those are the main three I am interested in anyway, Also decided since Batari Basics IDE is no longer supported I would add support for it.
so now the Editor will handle Batari basic as well as 7800 ASM file creation, sounds like a lot but it really is not all that much since all I have to do is tie it all together from a single IDE.
and Yes I know again this is not really needed but what the hell I do not have anything better to do and it is my day off from work so I might as well have some fun.
I just found the new Batari basic Editor and it looks sweet, so I do not have to include one in mine at all, I just thought that one that made by Attendo was it.
for a grand total of $ 2.00 I am the happy new owner of an Atari 2600 (vader in great shape) and a 2nd Generation Sega Genesis
the each system came with a few games and manuals, below are some pics.
Atari stuff first:
Now genesis stuff:
all in all not too shabby for $2.00, Now I just gotta find some more games and a Sega Master system with the light phaser and I will be in great shape. maybe next auction.
Now I think I have enough understanding of the assembly coding for the 2600 that I will try and do some math and play with the play filed registers and see what I can draw on the screen.
I figured I would start with my name just to get the feel for non mirrored play fields as they are the hardest to code.
Finally got some time to sit down again so i can continue my education with the ASM books and stuff, but now I find I am having to re-read all the stuff I read before because I keep forgetting what I read Before I just need to find some time to do it for 8 hours a day for like a 3 month period then I will remember it but unfortunately I can't just do that .
So I am going to bite the bullet and cheat : going to use Batari Basic, as I hear it still needs you to know ASM in order to do advanced stuff with it.
So that is what I am going to do, going to see if I can create a small game using PF blocks and 2 Sprites. if I can get that done then maybe I stand a chance of doing somthing at least.
That this Blog was not visible to others, so I made it visible to others, not that I do much in the way of really cool things but what the heck.
Just got a new (to me at least) Commodore 128 and some other stuff from a yard sale for $6.00 as well as found myself a copy of Forrest Mims Notebook from 1992 got it for .50 that to me at least was a real bargain.
other than that my life I guess is pretty boring, well see ya later on I got to go do the work all night thing.
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