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Making Games For The Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 was released in 1977, and now there's finally a book about how to write games for it! You'll learn about the 6502 CPU, NTSC frames, scanlines, cycle counting, players, missiles, collisions, procedural generation, pseudo-3D, and more.
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Feb 14, 2007 · About batari Basic. batari Basic, or “bB,” is the language used in the creation of Atari 2600 games. bB is actually a compiled language, which runs on a computer, but generates a binary folder that can be read by and run on the Atari 2600 emulator or can be utilized to create a cartridge that can operate on an actual Atari 2600.
May 19, 2021 · This book contains all the elements needed to learn the 6507 assembly language, how to control the graphic elements of the TIA, create music and sound, and a step-by-step guide to the creation of five amazing games. Online courses. Learn Assembly Language by Making Games for the Atari 2600 by Gustavo Pezzi.
Feb 6, 2023 · Here are the headlines : # cc2600. cc2600 implements a subset of C compiler for Atari 2600. The main goal of cc2600 is to enable making games for the Atari 2600. using C language, including writing kernels, not to provide full C support for the 6502. (have a look at cc65 if this is what you are looking for).
- cc2600
- Main features
- Known limitations
- How to install
- Examples of code using cc2600
- Technical details
- TODO
cc2600 implements a subset of C compiler for Atari 2600. The main goal of cc2600 is to enable making games for the Atari 2600 using C language, including writing kernels, not to provide full C support for the 6502 (have a look at cc65 if this is what you are looking for). Any code written for cc2600 can be compiled with gcc, but not the other way round... The 6502 processor is famous for being an inefficient target for C compilers, due to its poor stack support, its infamous indexing modes and its lack of registers. In addition to the limitations of the Atari 2600 (128 bytes of RAM, strong reliance on bankswitching, low speed in general), the use of pure C on this platform is limited. cc2600 tries to cope with these limitations by not strictly implementing all C features but mapping C syntax to the specifics of 6502, in particular indexing modes.
Note that this compiler is for writing "old school" code for ATARI 2600. It's not meant to be used for CDFJ (custom ARM code on the Melody/Harmony cart) development, where the 6507 code is reduced to the minimum. On the contrary, it was designed to write code the classical atari way, possibly with DPC or DPC+ accelerators or a superchip for more RAM.
cc2600 should not be a starting point for writing ATARI 2600. You'll first have to learn writing games in assembler (I definitely recommand reading "Making Games For The Atari 2600", by Steven Hugg, see https://8bitworkshop.com/docs/books). On the other hand, if you're an experienced ASM code writer, you may gain a lot of time using cc2600 for your next game developement, since cc2600 will enable you to leverage the use of structural code writing.
cc2600 is implemented in the Rust programming language, a touch of modernity for a 45 years old console... The C language grammar has been handwritten from scratch as a PEG grammar, so don't expect any ANSI or ISO C compliance.
•Produces DASM compatible code (DASM is required as a second stage compiler)
•Native Atari F4, F6 and F8, 3E (lots of RAM!), DPC and DPC+ bankswitching schemes support
•Superchip (128 bytes of additional RAM!) support
•Uses only 1 byte of RAM
•load/store/strobe intrinsics allow the writing of efficient kernels.
•X and Y registers are directly mapped to X and Y variables, just like if they were declared as unsigned char global variables.
•The only data types supported are char (8-bit), short (16-bit) and char pointers (16-bits), and one dimensional arrays of these types.
•Array subscripts are limited to constants, X and Y variables / registers.
•16-bits arithmetics is implemented but limited to simple operations.
•No 32-bits operations, no floating point.
Installing from source is quite straightforward when Rust Cargo is available on your platform. If this is not the case, please use rustup to install it, then use cargo install --path . in the root directory to compile and install cc2600 locally. cargo test launches the unit tests of cc2600.
You can install the binary directly using Cargo by typing cargo install cc2600
A rather complete example of what is possible with cc2600 is the HappyBird game, freely available for download. This example demonstrates a lot of different features : use of inlined assembler (for savekey i2c communication), 48 pixels wide graphics display, ROMplus access, bankswitching, indirect addressing via pointers, etc.
A few examples are also available in the examples directory. There is a Makefile in the folder, but it should only work on Linux. If you want to build yourself the magnificient DPC (David Patrick Crane coprocessor) example featuring Garfield, type :
cc2600 -Iheaders examples/test_dpc.c
This will produce out.a, which is a DASM compatible source code.
Type dasm out.a -f3 -v4 -oout.bin -lout.lst -sout.sym to make the cartridge.
You can then use the stella emulator to run the binary out.bin, or copy it on a Harmony ou PlusCart cartridge.
Bankswitching
Bankswitching is hidden under the carpet by cc2600. Just specify bank1 to bank*n* before the actual definition to locate either the data or the code into the given bank. cc2600 will compute the number of banks at compile time and will generate the cartridge according to this. Not specifying anything puts the data into bank0, which is the default starting bank. Function calls from bank to bank are allowed only from bank0 to bankn and from bankn to bankn. Bankswitching code is automatically inserted if necessary.
Superchip
Superchip support is automatically activated if you use the keywork superchip before a variable declaration. It yields 128 bytes of additionnal RAM. Note that this is not compatible with 3E, DPC and DPC+ bankswitching schemes (but 3E and DPC+ provide some RAM by other ways).
Intrinsics
cc2600 supports a few intrinsics to help making ASM-like tuned code : •load(expr) loads the 6502 accumulator with expr. It implements a LDA isntruction. •store(expr) stores expr into the accumulator. It implements a STA isntruction. •strobe(pointer) implements a STA instruction also. It's just the same as store, but accepts only pointers. Typically used for your numerous strobe(WSYNC) instructions in your kernel... •asm(string) inlines the given assembler instruction into the C code. Particularly useful to call ASM function (use asm("jsr asm_function")). •csleep(int) stands for cycle sleep. Helps to insert nops in the code. Implemented for 2 to 10 cycles.
•Provide more examples
•Fix 16 bits arithmetics so that it becomes more usable...
•Implement sign extend (for 8 bit to 16 bits variable assignment)
•DWARF data output for debugging with Gopher2600
•Add 3E+ bankswitching scheme support
In Memoriam
See the included LICENSE.txt for more information. The license does not apply to Atari 2600 games created with Batari BASIC. You may license your games however you wish. Many batari Basic games have been published, and are available for sale on cartridge.
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Apr 19, 2019 · Welcome to Atari Dev Studio for designing homebrew games for the Atari 8-bit systems (Atari 2600 and 7800). Atari Dev Studio is a one-stop-shop for any programmer and includes a number of built-in features to allow you to design, develop and test games for your favourite system. Get started with batari Basic (2600) or 7800basic (7800) using ...
