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Thinking about Developing a Udemy Course on Homebrew 2600 Development


ALaMothe

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Everyone,

 

Hopefully, this is the right place to get information on this :) Anyway, I am coming up with topics to do another Udemy course. My last was on electronics and PCB design, so I am toying with doing a game dev course. But, there are countless classes on game development, and after writing about the subject for 20+ years, I am not really interested in re-hashing things I have already covered in one of my books. That said, I want to do something more unique and I was thinking about a course on 2600 game dev for beginners, but I wanted to use BATARI BASIC rather than ASM, since developing kernals and coding in asm is going to shrink the potential student pool about 90%.

 

I think BB is the way to go.

 

That said, I had some questions -- its been many years since I played with BB. I played with it when it first came out, thought "pretty cool", and shelved it in my mind, thinking maybe some day I will write a book and use BB as the language. Anyway, I spent the last hour or so looking around the site, it doesn't look like its been touched in 10 years. So, my questions are:

 

1. Are people still coding in BB? I see lots of posts here about it, so I would imagine yes. But, if that's true why hasn't there been an update in 10 years?

 

http://bataribasic.com/

 

2. Do you think its worth doing a course on BB and game dev on the 2600? There would be only ONE of these courses on Udemy, so it would at very least be unique, although pretty useless from a job skills point of view for students.

 

3. Are there any games that really stand out written in BB as holy shit that's amazing? I should look at?

 

4. And finally, I HATE emulation, I like HARDWARE -- so, I don't mind teaching on the PC with emulation, etc. but, at some point, I want to burn the binary to a cartridge and play the game on my 2600, and I want students to as well. Any comments on this? Are their problems? Things that emulate, but the 2600 don't handle correctly?

 

Thanks everyone -- I am just in the "maybe" phase right now, but trying to talk myself into it :)

 

Andre'

 

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ALaMothe,

 

I would start here at: http://www.randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-batari-basic-commands.html

 

I think everyone from me the novice to the advanced go to RT's page. There are some programs there, but there are a few games written in Bb like: Princes Rescue, Halo, Zippy, and many others. Most have the source code to help others learn and some are actually on cart. Since the AFP came out most have been trying to fix the issues like the "Score" was just fixed and the use of bank switched games. Hope this helps and I would be a student if you go that direction, thanks.

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Good -- thanks, I have visited that site as well of course. So, seems I am correct in my assumption that BB hasn't been updated in 10 year? Right? Everyone is still using the 2007 version? If this is true, I am amazed someone else hasn't picked up the project, AA is HUGE, someone from here, etc. and kept making updates...

 

Andre'

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ALaMothe,

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/123849-visual-bb-10-a-new-ide-for-batari-basic/page-28?do=findComment&comment=3537039

 

Is the latest build that I know of from 2017. Also at the top are "pinned" topics that the others like RT, RevEng make post. I can't say for the page I started with tinker installer back in 2015. I stumbled on to this forum after I was in the wrong forum for Atari age. What I noticed some will start out and then you won't see or here from them or they loose interest as some think like I did games happen overnight. Hope this helps until the other chime in. What I am interested in knowing does Bb have a convention or something. I would like to see that in person.

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Cool -- thanks. One of the biggest problems writing books or doing classes on a subject is the tech changes TOO fast, or TOO slow :) Anyway, I clearly need to research this subject and anything I do make sure that the course is generic enough, that it isn't "broken" in 6 months :)

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Everyone,

 

Hopefully, this is the right place to get information on this :) Anyway, I am coming up with topics to do another Udemy course. My last was on electronics and PCB design, so I am toying with doing a game dev course. But, there are countless classes on game development, and after writing about the subject for 20+ years, I am not really interested in re-hashing things I have already covered in one of my books. That said, I want to do something more unique and I was thinking about a course on 2600 game dev for beginners, but I wanted to use BATARI BASIC rather than ASM, since developing kernals and coding in asm is going to shrink the potential student pool about 90%.

 

I think BB is the way to go.

 

That said, I had some questions -- its been many years since I played with BB. I played with it when it first came out, thought "pretty cool", and shelved it in my mind, thinking maybe some day I will write a book and use BB as the language. Anyway, I spent the last hour or so looking around the site, it doesn't look like its been touched in 10 years. So, my questions are:

 

1. Are people still coding in BB? I see lots of posts here about it, so I would imagine yes. But, if that's true why hasn't there been an update in 10 years?

 

http://bataribasic.com/

 

2. Do you think its worth doing a course on BB and game dev on the 2600? There would be only ONE of these courses on Udemy, so it would at very least be unique, although pretty useless from a job skills point of view for students.

 

3. Are there any games that really stand out written in BB as holy shit that's amazing? I should look at?

 

4. And finally, I HATE emulation, I like HARDWARE -- so, I don't mind teaching on the PC with emulation, etc. but, at some point, I want to burn the binary to a cartridge and play the game on my 2600, and I want students to as well. Any comments on this? Are their problems? Things that emulate, but the 2600 don't handle correctly?

 

Thanks everyone -- I am just in the "maybe" phase right now, but trying to talk myself into it :)

 

Andre'

 

 

 

Hi Andre, here is another BASIC you may like that your students can use with the SuperCharger and the real hardware to make games that load from cassette tape, or create tiny cartridges (MicroSD) for the Atari Flashback Portable.

 

More info is on my site along with 10 line BASIC game examples written in old-school mode which is more like vintage Atari BASIC:

 

http://relationalframework.com/Atari2600gamesonline.htm

 

ASCII art graphics designers like in BB and a tracker sequencer can optionally be used as well, but I think the old-school mode increases the potential student pool by being like BASIC was bitd where you can write interesting one line programs and create a game with a few lines more :)

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Glad to see you again André. Always love seeing what you have going on.

 

A Udemy course sounds fun for potentially bringing more interest and coders to the VCS. :D

 

Haha I was going to mention your BASIC as well MrSQL. It is a neat alternative, you have some great scrolling code.

 

IIRC with André's infrastructure and experience potentially producing some carts for like bankswitched non-DPC binaries would be able to be done in his sleep. Would keep things simpler for the students too I think. Though who knows, he could go all out. :D

Edited by Jinroh
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Yes, I have a harmony cart. But, what I am saying, is that I want the basic to be able to produce binaries that can go on a standard cart without any special features, etc. -- In other words, I don't want large bankswitching, or whatever else to be a requirement of the BASIC.

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Yes, I have a harmony cart. But, what I am saying, is that I want the basic to be able to produce binaries that can go on a standard cart without any special features, etc. -- In other words, I don't want large bankswitching, or whatever else to be a requirement of the BASIC.

 

batari BASIC uses a very common bank switching scheme. Most established cart manufacturers can do up to 32k no SuperChip RAM just fine. There are non-AtariAge schematics out there that do 4k ROM just fine. So, I guess the universal standard 4k ROM is doable from any source including self made.

 

I sent you a PM Andre. I'm on owner of a Hydra and a big fan. Feel free to ask me questions on batari BASIC any time!

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  • 6 months later...

Doesn't look like the original poster has been on since last August. I think the only person that could pull it off correctly is Random Terrain. Not sure if he has looked into the costs involved with being a Udemy tutorial creator.

I'm still trying to convert that Atari book off and on, mostly off for months since I was in bed a lot. Now that I can use my computer more often, I can work on it more. The three main problems I'm having is that I'm not a writer, the book uses PRINT a lot, and the languages have glaring differences. I basically have to write my own book since I can't use a lot of what is printed, but I'm not a writer, so it could take me 700 years to finish it.

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