How far can the Atari 2600's BASIC Programming go?

[Dittohead Servbot #24]

That is, what kinds of programs is the Atari 2600's BASIC Programming capable of? I believe in the text manual it shows how you can make it play Pong for example. I know there's not much you can do on it but surely if one is really creative you can make some good programs for it? Any demonstrations on YouTube or elsewhere?

[+GroovyBee]

Do you mean the BASIC cartridge or batari Basic?

[smartkitten26]

Do you mean the BASIC cartridge or batari Basic?

 

He means the BASIC cartridge.

 

BTW, The BASIC cartridge could only handle about 11 lines, so it's probally hard to make something nice with it

[Tempest]

I think you can make a rudimentary Pong program with it, but that's about it. It's pretty worthless. I wonder if it could be hacked to support 16K or 32K of memory? Then you might, *might*, be able to do something interesting with it.

 

Tempest

[cvga]

So there's no truth to the rumor that the initial version of Halo was programmed using the Atari Basic cartridge?

[eegad]

That is, what kinds of programs is the Atari 2600's BASIC Programming capable of?

 

 

Not much, it was pretty worthless. I guess at the time, before most people had any type of computer access or any intro into programming at school, some could have found it interesting to learn some VERY rudimentary basics of what programming was like. But I think that when you turned the 2600 on, 'basic programming' only gave you something like 64 free bytes of ram to create a program in.....which is pretty much useless. And access to graphics was limited to moving 2 blocks around the screen. I did make a simple game of 'pong handball' with it, but that's about the most you could do.

[holgibo]

The next step was the Compumate, made by Spectravision. Here's an add.

[sloth713]

So there's no truth to the rumor that the initial version of Halo was programmed using the Atari Basic cartridge?

 

Actually the initial version of Halo was based of what code microsofts team of retarded monkeys could recover after running over atari basic programming with a steam roller

[Zoyx]

The next step was the Compumate, made by Spectravision. Here's an add.

 

Atari was toying with the idea of adding a keyboard to the 2600 back in 1983...

 

http://www.atariage.com/catalog_page.html?CatalogID=38&currentPage=2

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/2600/keyboard/

 

I would like to know what they had planned to accompany the keyboard.

[ovalbugmann]

Those Spectravision ones looked cool, I saw one on ebay a while back, but didn't have the cash for it. Would like to get one sometime.

[holgibo]

Those Spectravision ones looked cool, I saw one on ebay a while back, but didn't have the cash for it. Would like to get one sometime.

 

Back in the early eighties I thought of buying one, but then I read an article about it. The writer of the article had problems with loading a saved program back into the unit, also he wrote about the limitations of the basic, the graphics and the sound. After reading this article I decided to buy a 800XL (Which I still own & use today).

 

Today I think, I should buy a Compumate, just to test, how much of an real program you can write with it. A last it's a cool thing to turn your VCS2600 into "a real computer".

[Skylark68]

That is, what kinds of programs is the Atari 2600's BASIC Programming capable of? I believe in the text manual it shows how you can make it play Pong for example. I know there's not much you can do on it but surely if one is really creative you can make some good programs for it? Any demonstrations on YouTube or elsewhere?

 

Let me put it this way:

 

"Is this a game, or is this for real?"

 

...

 

"What is the difference?"

[accousticguitar]

 

Let me put it this way:

 

"Is this a game, or is this for real?"

 

...

 

"What is the difference?"

Another Wargames quote.