Is there any info about the original 2600 dev kit?

[asiga]

I've been searching for info about the original dev kit used by 2600 game designers at the time, but found only a picture from a kit assembled by the Pitfall game creator. No info about what hardware was it, nor what tools (if any) it came with.

 

Isn't there any website describing what was actually the hardware of the original dev kit?

[kamakazi]

The only dev kit I have ever discovered online was for the 7800. I have not seen one for the 2600. To my understanding, any Atari 2600 program in development was done on a computer (not exactly sure on what kind) and prototype code was taken to a lab that would burn the program to an EEPROM for testing on an actual 2600. I don't really think that a dev card was made for the 2600 but I might be wrong so don't quote me on that.

 

The 7800 dev kit, if someone really wanted to go all out, might be able to be modified slightly for 2600 development. But it might be easier, not necessarily cheaper, to obtain something like a Maxi Cart that can accept SD cards. Simply create your code, place it on the SD, slap the SD into the Maxi Cart, and plug it into a real 2600. Either that or obtain a Supercharger. That's about the only methods I have heard most other developers talk about in other posts.

[raindog]

I don't know that there ever really was a "dev kit" for the 2600. Remember that Atari never wanted third-party games to be made for the VCS, going so far as to sue Activision over it. If Crane had a dev kit for Pitfall, it was something Activision came up with on their own.

 

I vaguely remember something about a minicomputer being used for assembly at Atari, I want to say a PDP-11, and then, yeah, burn an EPROM and probably a bunch of oscilloscopes for debugging. I think Activision used an Apple II assembler, don't know if they had a fake cartridge that plugged into the VCS to avoid the EPROM burning cycle.

[asiga]

But, even if Atari wished to keep it closed, what was the coding process? I mean, did they assemble it in a third-party computer which was unable to run the code? How did they try even if the code ran at all? Did they have to burn a cartridge just to check if the code started to run? I supposed Atari used some of their computers, attached to a 2600 board in some way, so that they didn't have to burn a cartridge just for checking if aliens look nicer in green or red...

[+nanochess]

Over time I've read that Atari developers used a KIM-1 for testing and developing the TIA chip and also PDP-11 for cross-assembling the games.

 

So far as I remember, Atari programmers simply had a bunch of EPROM for programming continously and used PCB with sockets to put them in and test in a real Atari (and obviously lots of EPROM erasers!)

 

I don't think they had access to a full Atari 2600 emulator, but probably there were a 6502 step-by-step debugger for simple routines.

 

I've done a search for info, and I've found this interview with Mike Albaugh (early Atari employee): http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2011/10/102743036-05-01-acc.pdf

 

I suppose there are more interviews in the same style, just that sometimes these are hard to find.

[+nanochess]

Hahaha, I've found it. Now I remember I've read it in AtariAge, the greatest ever forum for Atari VCS

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/217290-atari-vcs-and-apple-ii-developer-environment-what-did-they-do/

[+Andrew Davie]

From the Carol Shaw interview...

 

 

BE: What was your office like at Atari when you were a game designer there?

CS: I shared an office with a guy named Ian. I've forgotten his last name. And then we had lab space. The offices had windows, and the lab was in the middle of the building, so you'd work on — at some point, we got a Tandem computer where we could type in the programs.

So you'd work on writing your code, and then you'd go in the lab and test it out on the test system and debug it, and so on. And we had 8-inch floppies that we had the programs on.

BE: Did you have a terminal in your office, or was it a full-blown computer?

CS: I got a terminal that connected to the Tandem mainframe. I'm not sure if we had that when I first started, but eventually we had a terminal. So no personal computers or anything.

BE: How many test machines did you have in the lab?

CS: There were quite a few. I don't remember exactly.

BE: Would they load the program off the disk, or did you have to put the game on an EPROM first?

CS: No, we didn't have to put it on an EPROM. We had some sort of home grown development system where you'd load from the 8-inch floppy disk and download it into this development system that had a terminal that you could debug on.

You didn't have to burn a ROM every time you tested something. You'd just use this development system they had. It had a television set to display it on, and you could modify your program. You could directly hand assemble minor changes without having to reassemble the whole thing if you just wanted to test out some small change.

[asiga]

Thanks a lot!! Very interesting!!