I never introduced myself to the group so I thought
this was a good time to do this.
I recently, about a year ago, regained interest in
the Atari2600. My wife and I were watching our nephew play my brother's
Playstation and got to thinking that our son would eventually want to play video
games too. Instead of bombarding our son with buttons we decided to buy a
7800. In 2600 mode one stick, one button, no confusion. Of course he
can't get any real enjoyment out of it yet because he's 15 months old but his
daddy can.
After purchasing the 7800 I began to have my old
childhood dreams of programming a 2600 cartridge. Of course I started
searching the net as anyone would do nowadays and I found the Stella list.
I began reading the list and was fascinated with the programs that were being
produced. So with the Stella list as my reference I decided to try
programming a birthday cartridge for my son's first birthday. My main
sources of information came from Nick's "How to Draw a Playfield", Matt's
displaying a rainbow in his name, and Matt's demo of using an asymmetric
playfield. I was able to produce something even though it was not very
efficient (I really believe this could be condensed to 2K) but I'll share the
binary to the list anyway. This was my very first attempt at writing 6502
assembler code. I've always wanted to learn it when I used to program my
800XL but just didn't take the time.
Anyway on to the true response to this post.
I was actually thinking of writing two games as a exercise for
myself. One was a port of J.D. Caston's Atari computer game Box-In.
You've seen many variations of this before I'm sure. The object is to push
some blocks around the playfield and surround a monster in the least amount of
time possible. And the other was a 2600 version of Nibbler by
Rockola. I love playing this game on MAME and I thought my son would enjoy
it on the Atari. Now these projects seem pretty big to a Smalltalk
programmer that hasn't dealt with 6502 assembler very long but they were going
to be just a hobby to see if I could do it. But with deadlines on my
current job, working 50-60 hour work weeks, and spending time with my family I
just can't get them off the ground. Anyone else want to tackle
these?
Well, I've done enough babbling for the list.
Here is my binary and I hope to see some really great games from the
list.
Dennis
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 1:23
PM
Subject: [stella] [POLL] So, what are you working
on?
> Hi again!
>
> When I
was new to the list (more than three months ago :-)), I was
> asking what
everybody was working on. Now, I'd just like to repeat that
> question, to
update my database :-)
>
> Ok, I know that Mr Colbert is working on
producing little Colberts, I
> know what Andrew is doing, I know even some
secret plans from another
> guy, but what is the rest on?
>
>
Tell me!
>
> Mark: What about 'Caves 2600'?
> John: 'Pressure
Gauge 2' news?
> Joe: On your webpage I see that your nameless(?) game was
recently
> updated. How are you progressing?
> Russel: What about
Yahtzee?
>
> Anyone already started 'Jumpman 2600'? :-)
>
> Greetings,
> Manuel
>
> -
> Archives (includes
files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/> Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/>
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