I now have Making Games for The Atari 2600 by Steven Hugg

[Prince Manic]

Since I have the NES Book to make NES Games in C...I been wanting to make Atari 2600 games, What are some games that I could stuff inside a small cart when I get into the book to know how to make Atari 2600 games?

 

I might have a few ideas for this old system, Where I can find a board so I can convert that into a Dev Cart like I did for my NES carts with Dual wipe headers.

 

Would any tools work with 8-Bit Workshop's Atari 2600 Batari Basic IDE I'm basically new to Atari 2600 making.

 

I'm basically wanting to be a Retro game dev and create games for these old systems.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Prince Manic

[Lillapojkenpåön]

What NES Book to make NES Games in C if I may ask?

Install atari dev studio for visual studio code first of all if you haven't.

[Prince Manic]

1 hour ago, Lillapojkenpåön said:

What NES Book to make NES Games in C if I may ask?

Install atari dev studio for visual studio code first of all if you haven't.

It's a book by Steven Huggs that covers the nes programming in C using 8-bit workshop an online ide and it's all in asm or c as it uses cc65

 

I could use the same online ide for the atari 2600.

[Lillapojkenpåön]

Cool, I didn't know about that site, seems awesome

[Prince Manic]

7 minutes ago, Lillapojkenpåön said:

Cool, I didn't know about that site, seems awesome

Give it a try as this site makes it a lot easier to program your game with the online IDE then setting up what's needed and once the game is finished you can export it as a Rom file and play it on Real Hardware or Emulation this has examples on how its done and stuff.

 

8-bit Workshop - Make sure to make a Github account and make it as a repository as most browser deletes the local storage within' a few days.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Prince Manic

[Lillapojkenpåön]

I shure will.

[+Karl G]

8 hours ago, Prince Manic said:

I might have a few ideas for this old system, Where I can find a board so I can convert that into a Dev Cart like I did for my NES carts with Dual wipe headers.

The two major dev carts in use for the 2600 are the Harmony Cart and the Unocart. Since you seem interested in rolling your own, the latter has an open design, and you can make your own if you wish.

 

8 hours ago, Prince Manic said:

Would any tools work with 8-Bit Workshop's Atari 2600 Batari Basic IDE I'm basically new to Atari 2600 making.

That IDE uses the DASM assembler on the backend, and you can take source code from there and assemble it yourself with DASM on your own system. DASM is by far more widely used than cc65 for Atari projects, and most of the code you will see here will be for DASM.

 

The 8bitworkship IDE also uses the Javatari emulator to run the assembled ROMs through the web browser. Javatari is quite handy, but it has some emulation limitations. Other than actual hardware, your best bet for testing your game would be the Stella emulator.

 

 

[Prince Manic]

8 minutes ago, Karl G said:

The two major dev carts in use for the 2600 are the Harmony Cart and the Unocart. Since you seem interested in rolling your own, the latter has an open design, and you can make your own if you wish.

 

That IDE uses the DASM assembler on the backend, and you can take source code from there and assemble it yourself with DASM on your own system. DASM is by far more widely used than cc65 for Atari projects, and most of the code you will see here will be for DASM.

 

I don't mind it as long I'm enjoy making 2600 games I'm good, I did made two NES Open Cart Dev Carts using Muramasa's NRom and SxRom (Made into a SLROM) with dual wipe headers for prototyping on Real NES, I would love to create an open version as it can be my own classic way to program and test on the Real 2600

 

My NES Carts focuses on two games - Ms. Disaster's Blockade and Dr. Emerald's Revenge.

 

8 minutes ago, Karl G said:

The 8bitworkship IDE also uses the Javatari emulator to run the assembled ROMs through the web browser. Javatari is quite handy, but it has some emulation limitations. Other than actual hardware, your best bet for testing your game would be the Stella emulator.

 

I do have that handy in case for emulation testing from it, now I've got to find my 2600 usb joystick for realism. My dad does own an Atari 130 XL/XE and I know that can run 2600 games without issue, I'm not sure about him owning the 5200 or 2600 consoles.

[NoLand]

1 hour ago, Prince Manic said:

My dad does own an Atari 130 XL/XE and I know that can run 2600 games without issue

Please do not confuse "Atari 8-bit games", generally meaning Atari 400/800 and later siblings of that family, and Atari 2600 (VCS). These are not the same platform, they are actually incompatible. However, a controller for the Atari 8-bit family should work with the Atari 2600.

Instead of buying a dedicated USB joystick, you could also get one of the various Atari joystick port (DB-9) to USB adapters and use an original or compatible one. You could even build your own using the "zero delay" USB interface used by many arcade gamers (you can find these tiny boards quite cheap at ebay, Amazon, etc.) I believe, there are several tutorial videos on how to do this on YouTube, as this has gained some popularity with the New C64.

[Prince Manic]

1 hour ago, NoLand said:

Please do not confuse "Atari 8-bit games", generally meaning Atari 400/800 and later siblings of that family, and Atari 2600 (VCS). These are not the same platform, they are actually incompatible. However, a controller for the Atari 8-bit family should work with the Atari 2600.

Instead of buying a dedicated USB joystick, you could also get one of the various Atari joystick port (DB-9) to USB adapters and use an original or compatible one. You could even build your own using the "zero delay" USB interface used by many arcade gamers (you can find these tiny boards quite cheap at ebay, Amazon, etc.) I believe, there are several tutorial videos on how to do this on YouTube, as this has gained some popularity with the New C64.

Darn I wished it was

 

I do have a little joystick module for Arudino from sparkfun that I could try turning into a modern day Atari joystick, my Retrobit USB Atari Joystick still works but has a nasty crunch when I move the stick (the cheap plastic cracked which is the cause of this)

Edited May 6, 2020 by Prince Manic