3 replies to this topic

[Syntaxerror999]

Hi, I was curious as to how the BASIC programing cart software worked and if anyone had ever posed a commented version of the source code like the combat and dragonfire sources in the archives sections. Im interested to see what it would take to rewrite it to store your program code on a SARA or simmular RAM modual to make the program more... usefull. Im starting to learn a bit of Atari programing and thought this would be a good project to start.

[GroovyBee]

If you are starting with Atari 2600 programming then you'd be better off learning batari Basic in my opinion. You'll find it much more fun to play with than tinkering with what is essentially a curiosity. Modern 2600 development tools like Stella, batari Basic, DASM etc. make it a lot less frustrating to get your ideas out.

[Syntaxerror999]

GroovyBee, on Thu Aug 11, 2011 1:53 PM, said:

If you are starting with Atari 2600 programming then you'd be better off learning batari Basic in my opinion. You'll find it much more fun to play with than tinkering with what is essentially a curiosity. Modern 2600 development tools like Stella, batari Basic, DASM etc. make it a lot less frustrating to get your ideas out.

no no no.. I dont want to write games for it or anything, just hack it into what it should have been. What sucks about it is that aisde from not being very powerful, is that after loading up the main kernal there so little RAM space left to realy write anything at all... 10 lines I think is the max, but if it could be recoded to impliment a SARA (or melody board equivalent) chip, then that would give you at least 128k to work with while the core program resides in the atari internal ram.

perhaps even new commands or even a save/load feature (Id do it on cassette just to keep true to the era). A bankswitched ROM could even hold a table of predefined sprites on an ASCII table featuring alphanumeric characters as well as sprites from ataris library of games.

The aim is to make a finished product that could very well have been on the store shelves in the 80's (if warner would have invested the cash to do it).. in the end it probably will still suck, but maybe I can make it suck a little less.

[GroovyBee]

In which case by reverse engineering the ROM yourself, understanding the code, adding comments, renaming RAM locations to useful variable names and the like you'll be off to a good start in any modifications you want to make.