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From: dyer@atari.UUCP (Landon Dyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Atari 2600 specs/instruction set/programming
Message-ID: <814@atari.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Aug-87 11:26:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: atari.814
Posted: Wed Aug 12 11:26:42 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 05:43:42 EDT
References: <2296@mmintl.UUCP>
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 25
Keywords: atari game

In article <2296@mmintl.UUCP>, tedi@mmintl.UUCP (ted ives) writes:
> This is all concerning the Atari 2600 VCS (you know, the old atari 
> video game system).
>  
> Does anyone know where I can find information about:
> a.)  The hardware (i.e. specs on the chips, instruction sets, etc.)
> b.)  How to program it, i.e. is there any assembler, or do people just use
>      eproms or what?
> I am basically interested in finding out how the whole thing works, with an
> eye to maybe writing a game for it.

I don't /know/ of any public documentation on 2600 internals, but that
doesn't mean there isn't any.  But most of the documentation was
'stolen' from Atari, or reverse-engineered, and was kept secret.  You
still need to sign a non-disclosure to get the official docs from Atari.

The machine is INCREDIBLY difficult to program.  It's a 6507 with 128
bytes of RAMa PIA, abaroque video chip, and next to nothing else.
The keyword here is PAIN.  But there are a lot of base units out there....

-- 
-Landon Dyer, Atari Corporation	       {sun,amdcad,lll-lcc,imagen}!atari!dyer
The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those	     BUSINESS
of Atari or the AI software that has taken over my brain.	     IS
Yow! I am waiting for my warranty-expired interrupt!		     HELL