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🚀 Getting Started

Welcome

Part 0: Foundations

01 — Number Systems

02 — Meet Stella Debugger

03 — Anatomy of the Atari 2600

Part 1: The 6502 CPU

04 — Registers and Memory

05 — Arithmetic

06 — Flags and Comparisons

07 — Branches and Loops

08 — Stack and Subroutines

09 — Bitwise Operations

10 — Addressing Modes

11 — Lookup Tables

Part 2: TV & TIA

12 — The NTSC Frame

13 — Colors

14 — WSYNC and Timing

15 — The Timer

16 — Horizontal Zones

17 — Cycle Counting

18 — Mid-Scanline Changes

Part 3: Playfield

19 — Playfield Basics

20 — Playfield Colors & Priority

21 — Asymmetric Playfield

22 — Playfield Animation

23 — Data-Driven Playfield

24 — Multicolor Playfield

Part 4: Sprites

25 — Player Sprite Basics

26 — Horizontal Positioning

27 — Sprite Movement

28 — Two Players

29 — Missiles and Ball

30 — Multi-Color Sprites

31 — Copies and Sizes

32 — Vertical Delay

33 — Paddle & Keyboard Controllers

34 — Sprite Animation

Part 5: Sound

35 — Sound Effects

36 — Music

37 — Advanced Audio

Part 6: Game Development

38 — Collision Detection

39 — The Scoreboard

40 — BCD Arithmetic

41 — Game States

42 — Difficulty and Progression

43 — Random Numbers

44 — AI & Enemy Behavior

45 — Memory Management

46 — Debugging

47 — Development Tools & Workflow

Part 7: Kernel Mastery

48 — Introduction to Kernels

49 — The 2-Line Kernel

50 — Multi-Zone Kernel

51 — Flicker Sprites

52 — Fine Scrolling

53 — Kernel Design Patterns

54 — Visual Effects Cookbook

55 — Scrolling Text Marquee

Part 8: Advanced Topics

56 — Bankswitching

57 — Superchip

58 — Illegal Opcodes

59 — Self-Modifying Code

60 — DPC and DPC+

61 — Compression & Data Encoding

62 — Reverse Engineering a Classic

63 — Modern Homebrew

64 — Building Your Own Cartridge

65 — PAL/NTSC Universal ROM

Part 9: The DSL Path

66 — Analyzing batari BASIC

67 — Automatable Patterns

68 — Kernel Architecture

Part 10: Capstone Projects

69 — Capstone: Pong

70 — Capstone: Breakout

71 — Capstone: Maze Explorer

72 — Capstone: Your Own Game

Part 11: Legendary Techniques 🔮

Overview (Coming Soon)

73 — Cosmic Ark Starfield

74 — Skipdraw Sprite Kernel

75 — Pseudo-3D Road

76 — Procedural Worlds (LFSR)

77 — Interlaced Flicker

78 — Room & Object Engine

📖 Reference

Color Chart

6502 Instructions

TIA Registers

Cheat Sheet

Glossary

On this page

Tia Registers

🔒 Coming Soon

This reference page is under development.

Part of Racing the Beam — Atari 2600 programming reference.

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