jdrose

That's a new concept for me...demos for the Atari 2600 VCS. Did a fine job on that demo. And it ran perfectly under Stella. Very cool.

I do not think you need to do a CLD before each time the routine is run. That would possibly waste program space and certainly waste cycles. A CLD at the very beginning of your game code should do it. A universal procedure when programming the Atari 2600. The D flag is undefined on power up. *** Here is a good overview of the 6502 decimal mode. (Some of it may not apply to the 6507). http://www.6502.org/tutorials/decimal_mode.html

I used to be a greeter at a restaurant. Currently I am unemployed. Programming the 6507 in the Atari 2600 is a challenge, an enjoyable diversion and gives me something productive to do until I find another job. The popularity of the console, tight programming environment, small memory map and the challenge of "racing the beam" attracted me to the 2600. Nothing else quite like it. Plus I have always enjoyed programming in 6502 assembly.

Lazycow, I say go for it. Your mock-up screens look great. Was the original C64 Powerglove developed in assembly language?

"It is better to adapt to common naming standards (see vcs.h). Else (e.g. in case you ask for help) it will makes things just more difficult." Good advice.

Excellent tutorial. Where can I find a complete list of the 65SC02 instruction set?

Or how about another alternative? Who can get the most points in 1/2 an hour of play. How often are high score contests conducted?

"BTW: I have always been using this as a reliable reference for illegal opcode stability." Thank you.

"The book, published in 1978, contains schematics for all sorts of Pong-type games." With all due respect, the Studio II was not a "Pong Type" game. It did not rely on the discrete logic chips of pong consoles. The Studio II was a full computer architecture based console running an 1802 microprocessor executing programs stored in interchangeable ROM cartridges.

Is there a good guide to illegal opcodes that are useful specifically in the 2600 environment?

The artist is composing music using the "Music and Sound Editor" available in Visual bB. They are taking full advantage of the flexibilty and sophistication of that editor. Including the "dual channel" mode I assume. It really is a good tool for producing impressive 2600 music.

Wondering if a commented source code for the VCS version of Phoenix has ever become available?

Cool. I do not have any projects in mind currently. However, for future reference, what are your fees generally for producing a new composition?

If you are sending the music to a programmer coding specifically in bBasic then saving it in .bas would probably be best. That is how I would want it. Less hassle than reformatting the data from a ASCII text file.

You can save the data two ways: As a .dat file using Music and Sound "Save" button. And as a .bas file using the "Create .bas" button. I guess it would depend on the format your programmer would want to receive it in.

Oh, yeah, I think a lot programmers appreciate input from artists. Especially musicians.

Hey, that is nice tune! Good composition. And it does sound like "Horror" music. Is your data binary or stored as bBasic code? To avoid confusion, I think you would only use .bas if the music is part of bB compiler compatible code? What do you mean will your data work in someone elses code?

"IMO only once you've mastered Assembly should you attempt to use it to harness the unique and bizarre hardware of the VCS; it's a lot harder to do that all at once." That is a good point. Get a KIM or AIM 65 emulator and download the programming manuals for them. Do the programming excersices in them and learn the machine language basics of the 6502 first. I learned assembly language decades ago in the fairly friendly programming environment of the C64. Not sure I could have done it if the VCS was my first 6502 machine. Here is a well done 6502 turtorial: http://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/

The wonderful 1802 is a fairly slow microprocessor. One of the reasons that 2000 Invaders works so well on the Studio II is because it was written in native 1802 machine language. The original games for the Studio II were games running in an interpreter. Helps explain the glacial pace of some of the games. The Studio II could definitely use a homebrew community. The console is more capable than probably realized.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write that. However, the differences between the C64C and the C64 are well documented in print and online. I was aware of those differences. I was wondering if there are any hardware differences between the breadbox C64 with the brown keys and the breadbox C64 with the beige keys?

Which game are you debugging?

No worries. Interesting development. No one is expecting perfection until it is ready to be burned to a cartridge.

Game design. Someone could probably design on Masters course on that subject. My personal favorite games are Galaga and Phoenix. Not sure what that says about me, pretty simple fellow I guess. For some reason I find Shootin' Gallery (Imagic) and the Midnight Magic pinball games satisfying to play. Simple and straightforward. They keep you engaged without being too complicated. My brain seems to groove on those kinds of games. Playability and game mechanics are an important reason they are fun. You are not fighting to play the game. It just happens.

That is what I was thinking too. It is no problem to program a Pong game. It is quite another thing to make it completely out of hardware. Neat project.

Other than the color of the keys, is there any difference electronic or otherwise between the C64 computers with Brown keys and the ones with Beige keys? Such as eBay 190812224142 for example. Thank you.