How did they program Solaris on ATARI 2600 ?

[Lord-Chaos]

This game looks really impressive - there are many games looking not as good on ATARI 800 and other 8 Bit machines.

 

But how did they make this game ? If you compare it with the old ATARI 2600 games , it seems almost impossible to do.

 

Anyone analyzed the code of the game ?

 

Thimo

[DEBRO]

This game looks really impressive - there are many games looking not as good on ATARI 800 and other 8 Bit machines.

 

But how did they make this game ? If you compare it with the old ATARI 2600 games , it seems almost impossible to do.

 

Anyone analyzed the code of the game ?

 

Thimo

 

Doug worked on this game off and on for a couple of years. I can't remember what the original title was. I think it was The Last Starfighter but I can't be sure. Anyway, as most stories go, Atari was bought out by the Tramiels and they fired the game programmers. Doug continued to work on this game on his own (sort of a homebrew ). Later Atari wanted to re-release the 2600 so Doug sold them the game but it was more improved than the original because he kept working on it and adding to it.

 

You can see the source to Solaris on Bob Colbert's page. Also this is the Reader's Digest version of the story. You can get the full story from Stella @ 20 volume 1. Of course I don't know how you will get it now that Randy has closed HozerVideo

 

BTW, Doug also worked on the Atari 8-bit. He designed the POKEY chip and also wrote Star Raiders.