Category: Vintage Computing

Atari TIA schematics

Atari Age hosts two sets of copies of the schematics for the Atari VCS TIA (Television Interface Adapter), the custom chip that was used in the VCS/2600 for graphics and sound. One set has sheets at 2048 x 1396 resolution, the other is in a whopping 14400 x 9820 format.

Might be neat to simulate the TIA and other VCS hardware in Minecraft and run a ROM entirely in that world. Why not? Something similar was done w/ the Commandore 32!

Another interesting link – a recent rundown of the TIA hardware.

30th anniversary interview with Galaga creator/designer Shigeru Yokoyama

Neat background info on everything Galaga, from the programming to the cabinet design: https://web.archive.org/web/20150803002342/http://shmuplations.com/galaga

Galaga screenshot, courtesy The Society of Peripheral Studies
Galaga screenshot, courtesy The Society of Peripheral Studies

“The Core”: resurrecting Atari 2600 homebrew abandonware/vaporware…

…from a single screenshot more than 20 years after it disappeared due to unfortunate circumstances.

Interesting thread here at AtariAge discussing the current effort and a contemporaneous description of the game by the original developer, Paul Oswood, here.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t link to the original screenshot of course:

Original screenshot of
Original screenshot of “The Core” ca. 2000

Digitpress interviews David Rolfe…

…developer of – among other things – the Intellivision Exec OS and Star Fire, the first arcade game to use a sit-down cockpit, and more notably, allow a user to enter their initials after achieving a high score: https://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_david_rolfe.html

David Rolfe, programmer of Star Fire and Intellivision Exec OS
David Rolfe, programmer of Star Fire and Intellivision Exec OS

 

 

Browser-based 8080 PCjs machine emulation of 1978’s Space Invaders

Suh-weet: https://www.pcjs.org/machines/arcade/invaders/

Also, the Github repo for PCjs.

Rare and valuable Atari 2600 games

Amazing the obscurity of some of these titles and the resultant sales prices: https://www.racketboy.com/retro/rarest-and-most-valuable-atari-2600-games

Programming the Atari 2600 VCS

As I wrote previously, I’m considering taking a stab at programming Atari 2600 games for fun and _.  May just update helpful links here:

Twin Galaxies records

One of my 2023 goals is to rank on the Twin Galaxies records boards. I’m likely going to have to do it in what I call the “Tim Ferris way” though – by technicality haha…

Then again, there are a lot of really high scores already, at least for the games I currently own. Maybe I’ll just have to shoot for next-to-last rank for Gopher on the Atari 2600.

Interesting read on the technical aspects…

…of the Galaga no-fire cheat: https://www.computerarcheology.com/Arcade/Galaga/

%d bloggers like this: