I picked up the book "Beginning Programming for Dummies

[KAZ]

I stopped at the Edina library looking for some books related to Assembly Language, or anything having to do with the 6502.

 

The librarian helped me do a search, because I could find nothing in their computer section. They are not an "archival" library, and they don't keep books dating back to 1983, so she searched the library located in Minneapolis. It is an archival library, and had a bunch of books from:

 

http://www.6502.org/booklist.htm

 

But I did pick up a book from the library called: "Beginning Programming for Dummies."

 

Has anyone else read this, and did they find any of it helpful in general, or helpful for familiarizing themselves with programming leading up to programming for the Atari 2600?

 

That would be neat if they had "Assembly for Dummies" Or "6502 for dummies".

 

So I'm moving along....gonna try figuring this stuff out.

[eric_ruck]

As a self-taught programmer now in the field for 15 years, I can tell you that programming is programming is programming. What this means is that while programming Windows in Visual Basic seems and really is very different than programming a 2600 game in 6502 assembly, the basic concepts are all the same.

 

I will say that as modern programming languages like Visual Basic and Java get farther away from the workings of the processor and memory, the ideas do get a bit more abstract. But you can learn a lot about storing data, creating procedures, subroutines (now generally called functions) and conditionals. These are in every programming book.

 

It's easier to pick up a book and learn Visual Basic, so I'd recommend that you do it. Learn about loops, if's and variables. Learn about drawing on the screen. It's much easier to learn on a PC with Visual Basic. Plus it's not a bad career move. Then when you have the concepts down come back and tackle the 2600.

 

As far as the book goes, the book has to fit the person. When I go to the library or bookstore, I plan on spending awhile. I pick up all the books on the subject, read the table of contents, a sample chapter, look through the index, and make sure that the material I want is there, is presented in a way that I can learn from, and has good "blue box" summaries. (The summaries are a favorite feature of mine -- you know, they highlighted areas that summarize the last 10 pages in 2 or 3 paragraphs).

 

Eric