Richi_S

Well, here we go, my first Atari 2600 programm. This programm draws a starfield of 30 stars (Balls) moving horizontally over the screen. Various star colors and star speeds implemented. Unfortunately there is a glitch, the stars are jumping foreward at X-position 75. This must be some problem with the Tia ball movement. The Star X-position registers show their designated behavior. I checked this with Stella. Out of frustration I wrote the vertical positioning tables by my own (Rev. 2). Then playing around with the positions (Rev. 3) not causing any improvement. Can you give me assistance on that?. starfield.bin starfield.txt

Not to forget the AtariAge Forum where developers can exchange their ideas and technics. Back in the 80's these knowledge had been condifential material not to leave the company (just have a look at the original schematics). So all the competing development teams had to poke around on their own. Nowdays I'm just reading the Noob section getting all the information needed. Most of the early Atari 2600 games look like the programmers had so much to do getting used to the Atari 2600, that in the end, they did not have enough time to actually work on the game.

I'm in the beginner phase and as far as I can say: Its like taking part in a horse show jumping competition with a donkey. First it looks simple. A little assembler, simlpe real-time-programming, some tiny peripheral control. But if you want to programm anything like a game, it behaves highly "uncooperative". Just like a donkey. If you want this donkey to pass the show jumping court, you better build a cattle carrier, and give it a ride. I would give it a 8 of 10. Once you accepted it as what it is, It's fun.

What is your favourite cycle counting resource? I'm using NMOS 6502 Opcodes by John Pickens, Updated by Bruce Clark and Nick Bensema's Guide to Cycle Counting on the Atari 2600

The control is great. A good omen for a platformer.