Category: Atari

Atari TIA schematics

by insecure_automaton

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.

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

by insecure_automaton

…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.

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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

Rare and valuable Atari 2600 games

by insecure_automaton

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

by insecure_automaton

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

by insecure_automaton

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.

Procedural generation of Pitfall! worlds on the Atari 2600

by insecure_automaton

Evidently, each unique room was generated w/ only 1 byte(!) of data: https://evoniuk.github.io/posts/pitfall.html

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