[R-390] Progress?

blw [email protected]
Wed, 19 Jun 2002 19:49:44 -0500


> Ah, we are talking about different things.  I was talking about the Atari
> 2600 game console, which to me is their first *computer*.  In that case,
> there is no ROM in the console.  It has 128 bytes of memory total.  All of
> the ROM is in the cart.  But it does have a 6502 instruction set.
> 
> And no, I'm *not* sorry.  ;-)  I think it's interesting to be in a far
> corner of the cyberverse and find somebody with a similar interest.
> Actually, I think they were still making R-390A's when the 2600 came out.
> That's kinda interesting...  And to this day, people writing games for the
> 2600 are unsuccessfully trying to find ways to copy protect them.
> 
> BTW, if you like you can check out my 2600 emulator here:
> 
> http://www.whimsey.com/z26/
> 
> But you're on your own finding the bootleg ROM images which are illegal to
> possess.  ;-)
> 
> John



John,

I admire any 6502 programmer. You have to be efficient and just good to
program for such a puny CPU. I am still amazed at the quality of the
programs that were published for the 6502. It makes the current fare seem
bloated and just sloppy. I'm sure you feel the same way and I do like your
challenge to programmers regarding programming for the 2600. That is an
excellent way to train would-be programmers right.

Actually, I had something before the 2600 that I wish I had never given away
to a German kid. It was the Atari Super Pong game box. It was a small,
battery powered console with paddles. I think you had 4 different versions
of Pong on it. I bought this for a measly price back around 1977. Very few
people seem to have ever seen one.

Thanks for the link to your emulator site. I will definately take a look.
I'm a bit rusty on the emulators but I have many ROMs from the 2600 and
Atari 800 era. I think these are free to pass around now.  I was running Mac
and DOS programs on my Atari ST back in 1987-89 with good results. I had to
write a large DBase III database on company personnel back then before the
unit got their 286 Zenith. I did it at home on the ST and used it until the
computer came in.  It used to make my Mac friends pretty mad to see me
running their Mac software on a cheap Atari when they were paying out
thousands for their Macs. I like running Windows programs on the Mac because
it gets R-390A audio well. I don't have to worry about sound cards or
interrupts. I just run the audio cable in and get results. I've seen people
agonize over D/A converters, sound cards, etc but it doesn't apply to my
system.

Yeah, copying those ROMs to disk was probably not legal, but I enjoyed
learning from the challenge. I just didn't like carts so putting them on
floppy disks seemed like a good idea at the time. I had an Omnimon chip
piggy backed to the 6502 that would allow me to interrupt programs and get
into the editor to poke around memory, etc. You could do a lot with those
things. 


Barry