Mac os x atari 2600 programing

sock2828, on Wed Feb 1, 2006 10:54 PM, said:

what easy apps are there for mac os x for 2600 programing

Well, all you really need (absolute essentials) to develop games for the Atari 2600 are (1) a computer, (2) a text editor, (3) a 6502 assembler, and (4) an Atari 2600 emulator. Obviously, (2), (3), and (4) should work on (1). It could be argued that (4) isn't essential, since you can run your games on an actual Atari 2600 or 7800 if you have the right tools for doing that-- e.g., a Supercharger, Cuttle Cart, Cuttle Cart 2, or Krokodile Cartridge, and anything else required to load the game into said devices. But for the average person, an Atari 2600 emulator is probably more easily obtained and more convenient to use.

As far as (3) is concerned, the DASM assembler is available for Mac OS X, so you can/should download DASM (http://www.atari2600.org/DASM/).

As far as (4) is concerned, the Stella emulator is available for Mac OS X, so you can/should download Stella (http://stella.sourceforge.net/).

That leaves (2). If you want to make the programming process easier, you'll want to use an IDE ("integrated development environment"), because you can set up any decent IDE to compile your programs, and to run your compiled programs, all from within the IDE. I read that there is a free IDE for Mac OS X called Xcode, but I don't know anything about it. If you've never used an IDE before, be aware that you generally need to set it up to work with any language that doesn't have built-in support, so you'll most likely need to set up the IDE to call DASM to compile your programs, and to call Stella to run your programs.

An alternative to programming in pure 6502 assembly is to use batari BASIC. As far as I know, you'll need to "make" or build/compile batari BASIC to run on OS X, since an executable for OS X isn't already provided the way that an executable for Windows is. Compiling batari BASIC program code is a two-step process-- first you must compile the batari BASIC code into 6502 assembly code using the batari BASIC compiler, then you must assemble the 6502 assembly code into a binary file or "ROM image" using the DASM assembler-- so you still need to get DASM. And you'll need to set up your IDE so it calls a batch file that in turn calls the batari BASIC compiler and the DASM assembler. You can download the source for the latest "official" release of batari BASIC (http://www.alienbill.com/2600/basic/), or you might prefer to download the "bleeding-edge pre-release" of the next version (http://www.atariage....showtopic=82011).

It also goes without saying that you'll need good references on the Atari 2600 (its features, its memory map, and how its memory locations control its features), and on the 6502 assembly language. These are available here on the internet:
http://atarihq.com/danb/
http://www.6502.org/

Michael Rideout

There's a very nice, extremely configurable, painfully high learning curve program called "Emacs" on MacOSX too. It's textual, runs in the terminal, and supports so many functions that many people joke that it's not just a text editor, it's an operating system of its own right. (Examples: code editing, building, compiling, eMail, www, newsgroups, games, desktop publishing, &c.) Plus it can talk, which is always a great way to annoy roommates. Incidentally, versions of Emacs run on practically every computer around, and it's what Atari used to ship with their devkits on the Atari ST. The earliest known copy seems to date back to 1954 :-)

However, I wouldn't call it an "easy" app until/unless you've already learned how to use Emacs, but there is an online tutorial built in as well.