Complete newbie. Where do I start?

[Complete newbie. Where do I start?]

i have absolutely no programming experience whatsoever other than a 20 goto 10 basic three liner on the C64 20 years ago.

 

i'd really like to be able to program a simple game on the atari 2600 and am not afraid to learn.

 

can anyone point me in the right direction on where to start from the absolute beginning? and i mean beginning.

 

the more basic the better.

 

thanks in advance!

[Is there a command list available?]

cheers for all your replies guys. i've got myself a copy of the machine code for beginners book as well as the stella programmers guide.

 

i'll work through those.

[Is there a command list available?]

i've been looking at a number of commented dissassemblies - one of the shorter ones is the code for Outlaw.

 

What's confusing me is the commands that are used in each line:

 

; RAM variables:

PF0Array            = $80  ; PF0 array, 18 Bytes
ScoreshapeLow01     = $92  ; Shape of player 1 lower score digit
ScoreshapeLow02     = $93  ; Shape of player 2 lower score digit
ScoreshapeHi01      = $94  ; Shape of player 1 higher score digit
ScoreshapeHi02      = $95  ; Shape of player 2 higher score digit


; Draws the playfield and bullet 1 & increments the kernels linecounter


                   STA PF2            ; Draw PF2
                   LDA vertPosition01 ; A-> vertical pos player 1
                   SBC lineCounter    ; Current pos above player1?
                   BPL SkipDraw2      ; Y: SkipDraw1
                   LDY shapeOffset01  ; Y-> shapeOffset01
                   LDA LF6FE,Y        ; A-> player 1 shape
                   TAY                ; Y-> player 1 shape
                   LDA PF0Array,X     ; A->PF0 data (obstacle)
                   STA.w $000D        ; Draw PF0 (4 cycles!)
                   LDA lineCounter    ; A->lineCounter
                   CMP bulletVerPos01 ; Check for bullet 1
                   PHP                ; En/Disable bullet 1
                   LDA PF1Array,X     ; A->PF1 data (obstacle)
                   STA PF1            ; Draw PF1
                   LDA PF2Array02,X   ; A->PF2 data (frame)
                   STA PF2            ; Draw PF2
                   PLA                ; Restore...

 

 

Whilst there are comments which say what each line does, I'm interested to learn from a master list what each command does.

 

For instance, these three lines:

 

PF0Array            = $80  ; PF0 array, 18 Bytes
ScoreshapeLow01     = $92  ; Shape of player 1 lower score digit
PHP                ; En/Disable bullet 1

 

where could i find out that the PHP command enables/disables bullets? and what the PF0Array command actually does.

 

 

thanks in advance

[How do you play Outlaw in Single Player Mode?]

i thought the target ones could be the single player games. would've been good to play the outlaw vs outlaw games single player though.

 

cheers

[How do you play Outlaw in Single Player Mode?]

this might sound like a daft question but how do you play Outlaw in single player mode? each game select option i go through seems to be two players only.

 

cheers

[Binary machine code to Batari Basic?]

is there any way of converting the binary source code of a game into batari basic?

[Wanted: 2600 Top (wood panel, six switch holes)]

the one i got from ebay has paint splashes and marks on it which werent visible on the auction photo - i'd prefer a top in decent condition if anyone has a spare going.

 

i'm in the UK

 

cheers

[Where in the UK to get 2600 carts from?]

other than the obvious places like ebay, markets and charity shops, can any of the UK members recommend good places to go cartrigde hunting?

[What voltage does the 2600 need?]

yeh i'm in the uk

[What voltage does the 2600 need?]

there's people selling 2600 power adapters on ebay for 4.99 GBP - i'll get one of those. i can put up with the buzzing until then

[Just received my 2600!]

yeah i'm finding every spare minute i get i'm on ebay looking at 2600 carts. there seems to be some cracking bargains out there though

[Anything inside the 2600 to clean/service?]

just got a 2600. is there anything under the hood worth cleaning or greasing up to restore the console?

[What voltage does the 2600 need?]

The power supply that came with my 2600 buzzes. i can get another one no problem i just need to know what power rating a new supply would need to be

 

The model number on the bottom of the console says CX-2600 U. There are no voltage details on the console or on the power supply.

 

thanks guys

[Just received my 2600!]

i've been playing warlords for the past 2 hours. awesome.

 

collecting 2600 games is gonna be a great hobby!

[Cart Price Guide?]

is there a price guide (uk prices/pal games)site/book that anyone knows about ? i find the rarity guide on here very useful but was wondering how to value the rarity numbers.

[Krokodile Cartridge]

could i be added to the list? sounds like a great cart this - fantastic for programming

[What's the best cart find you've had?]

just picked up ikari warriors off the local market for a quid

[How to create multiple sprites?]

can anyone tell me what code portions would be needed in batari basic to create multiple sprites? i've experimented with the player0 and player1 code from the batari basic site but i'd like to create something with the player being chased by a number of other sprites (say 4 or 5).

 

thanks in advance

[What can't batari basic do?]

..with regards to comparing it to machine code programming? i've got all sorts of ideas for games i'd like to create but not sure about the constraints of batari basic.

[Any Batari Basic tutorials?]

are there any tutorials for batari basic? would be great to get to grips with this program via a decent tutorial.

 

thanks in advance

[What's the best cart find you've had?]

i'm new to collecting but have won a couple of auctions on ebay for multiple cartridge collections and one of the games is a boxed mint condition copy of Xenophobe which i believe to be quite a rare game. i only paid about £8 uk money for the whole set of games (about 10 carts)

 

Anyway I was just wondering what good cart finds people have had and not paid much for...

[Any other Definitive Disassemblies like Combat?]

just wondering if there were any other disassemblies of other games - complete with comments? i'm eager to find some other 2k games that i used to play and check out how they work.

[Newbie question about Breakout code]

i fancy having a crack at learning how to program the 2600. i'm going to print out the main tutorial and go through that and also saw a post which recommended taking a 2k game and dissasembling it to go through the code.

 

i did this with breakout although the code looks different to the combat dissasembly from the atariage site. here's a snapshot:

 

VSYNC   =  $00
VBLANK  =  $01
WSYNC   =  $02
NUSIZ0  =  $04
NUSIZ1  =  $05
COLUP0  =  $06
COLUP1  =  $07
COLUPF  =  $08
COLUBK  =  $09
CTRLPF  =  $0A
PF0     =  $0D
PF1     =  $0E
PF2     =  $0F
AUDC0   =  $15
AUDF0   =  $17
AUDV0   =  $19
GRP0    =  $1B
GRP1    =  $1C
ENAM0   =  $1D
ENAM1   =  $1E
ENABL   =  $1F
VDELBL  =  $27
HMOVE   =  $2A
HMCLR   =  $2B
CXCLR   =  $2C
CXP0FB  =  $32
CXP1FB  =  $33
CXM0FB  =  $34
CXM1FB  =  $35
CXBLPF  =  $36
INPT0   =  $38
SWCHA   =  $0280
SWCHB   =  $0282
INTIM   =  $0284
TIM64T  =  $0296

      ORG $F000
LF000: .byte $4C,$37,$F2
LF003: LDY    #$04    
LF005: STY    WSYNC   
      LDA    ($D0),Y 
      AND    #$0F    
      AND    $EE     
      STA    PF1     
      LDA    ($D2),Y 
      AND    #$0F    
      STA    $BB     
      LDA    ($D4),Y 
      AND    #$F0    
      ORA    $BB     
      STA    PF2     
      LDA    ($D6),Y 
      AND    #$F0    
      AND    $EE     
      STA    PF1     
      LDA    ($D8),Y 
      AND    #$0F    
      STA    PF2     
      INX            

 

 

i guess it's not different at all - i just need to learn more although as breakout was one of my favourite games i thought i'd look at that first. also there doesnt seem to be crazy amounts of code for it either which i thought would be good from a learning point of view.

 

 

anyway, with regards to going through the breakout code to find out what each line does, where would i be best to look to find out what lines like these do:

 

HMOVE = $2A

HMCLR = $2B

CXCLR = $2C

CXP0FB = $32

 

and

 

 

LF005: STY WSYNC

LDA ($D0),Y

AND #$0F

AND $EE

STA PF1

 

 

thanks in advance

[Where do I start with collecting?]

hello all. just registered and about to embark on collecting atari 2600 games.

 

any advice for a newbie on where to start?