to all newbies

[Heaven/TQA]

@ all newbies....

 

there are some guys who want to start coding classic games... i appreciate this creative energy... but beware... starting with 2600 might be very frustrating... so as an atari fanatic you seem to be... start with atari 8bit computer machines or 5200???? what do you think?

 

it's far far far more easier than you think... here you have all kind of tools, assemblers, gfx editors, etc. etc...

[Nukey Shay]

There is the valid point about habits needing to be "unlearned" when somebody makes the transition from another 8-bit machine to the 2600, though. So if you were starting completely from scratch knowing nothing about any programming...it's a tough call (especially considering the wealth of technical info made available in the past couple years). But for the most part, I agree with you.

[Albert]

My first programming efforts (both BASIC and 6502 Assembly) were (for the most part) on an Atari 800XL. All other things being equal, it is much easier to program an 8-bit or 5200 than the 2600. Writing an 8-bit game and becoming familiar with 6502 programming would greatly help when trying to program the 2600. At least then you won't be struggling learning 6502 at the same time as the arcane mysticism required to even get a pixel on the screen of the 2600.

 

..Al

[Heaven/TQA]

that's the point, learning 6502, kernel, cycle counting etc just to get a damned pixel/player on screen might be too much for a starter... but once you are hooked on atari 8bit machines you might find it hard when going back to 2600 or even other machines when you are familar with display lists, wsync, DLIs etc... but i find it easier when switching to GBA, PSone etc...

 

as a newbie you need step by step success...

[Cootster]

What if you actually understand the concept of programming, but you've on ever really done like very low-level stuff like Qbasic, ZZT, etc . . . Would the 8-bits or 5200 be good there?

[Heaven/TQA]

check out turbo basic XL on atari800...load it with atari800win emulator and play around little bit...it's a structured basic with repeat, until etc... and some atari related basic commands, f.e. binary load or move memory commands (for player missle gfx...)... its even faster than standard atari basic... here i learned my 1st steps in coding atari... step by step i went into assembler subroutines but still using turbo basic (f.e. "a=usr(setplayer,xpos,ypos,sprite data)....) so more and more i went into assembler... this you can't do with 2600... for rapid developing and learning programming a plus...) i would not even go for 5200 to be honest as you have memory restrictions less tools even there is a basic compiler but i would go for turbo basic XL...

 

let me give an example...

 

in turbo basic XL you can do this

 

10 rem setting new display list

20 dpoke 560,display_list

30 exec init_pmgrafix

40 poke $d01a,0:rem set background black

etc. etc...

 

so it's not hard to switch to assembler then.. as you can use hexadecimal values in turbo basic and word poking, procedures as subroutines....

[eric_ruck]

Or you can start with the Lynx...no text display, but it is easy to animate screens.

 

Eric

[Sharky]

I once attempted to try and learn Atari 2600 programming, but I get totally lost in the basics in Assembly. But I fairly well understand the difference between PAL and NTSC now, and timing is critical.

 

But Ill might just have a go at Atari 8bit programming.