There are also some pretty impressive demoscene examples on the 2600. Heck, they even did Bad Apple, which has been a trend on many other consoles including 5200 and SNES. Look up videos on YouTube.
Can't watch the video right now. There are some impressive feats of programming on the system, check out some later Activision games like Hero or Commando
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
That is my favorite 2600 game. I was lucky enough for that to be one of the 20 or so games my dad bought for his Atari. Most of the games he bought probably around 1980, then he bought a handful more later on. We still have all that stuff including his 6 switch console and paddle controllers. That was one of the few games that my friends that owned NESs would still play on Atari with me before I got my NES. I think I had a decent understanding of the game but I don't think I got too far in it. I'm not even sure if it has some kind of ending or loop. It all still works too, I usually use my 7800 for Atari gaming but I recently managed to get my hands on that original (to my family) 2600 and it fired up and worked flawlessly without even cleaning it.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
There are quite a few 2600 games that made use of extra RAM stored on the cart. IIRC Mountain King and other CBS games has a 2KB RAM chip on the cart. Pitfall 2 used a custom chip (DPC chip) that IIRC expanded memory, provided additional graphics capabilities, and 2 extra sound channels. Atari was basically doing what Nintendo did with the SuperFX chip 10 years early.
I dunno if this counts, but the Starpath Supercharger add-on and line of games showed what the 2600 was capable of with just 6KB more of RAM for games to work with. The 2600's only true RPG is a Starpath game:
Princess Rescue is probably the most impressive Atari 2600 game I've seen. Porting Super Mario to 1970s hardware that was designed for games like Pong and Combat is incredible. But Solaris is up there.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
There are quite a few 2600 games that made use of extra RAM stored on the cart. IIRC Mountain King and other CBS games has a 2KB RAM chip on the cart. Pitfall 2 used a custom chip (DPC chip) that IIRC expanded memory, provided additional graphics capabilities, and 2 extra sound channels. Atari was basically doing what Nintendo did with the SuperFX chip 10 years early.
I dunno if this counts, but the Starpath Supercharger add-on and line of games showed what the 2600 was capable of with just 6KB more of RAM for games to work with. The 2600's only true RPG is a Starpath game:
Not only that, but RAM is often used in place or ROM in cartridge emulators with no functional difference, so being RAM isn't what's important. Having more addressable memory space would be or allowing "multi-loading" games that could page in and out of RAM for games that are larger than what was possible on ROM carts.
ROM and RAM for read-only program execution really were equivalents. ROM was mapped to memory and was essentially a RAM expansion in the sense that it was all accessible in the memory map without using any of your actual work RAM. Loading a complete game into RAM means less work RAM available to your game.
If the Starpatch Supercharger expanded memory using a mapper or allowed multi-loading so that it's own RAM could increase the work RAM without reducing the size of the games, then great, but this isn't a simple matter of "RAM UPGRADE!" when we are talking about loading games from tape into RAM as opposed to having them already loaded in memory from cartridges.
CHR RAM in an NES game allows you to customize your sole window of data for the PPU. If you have CHR ROM, you have to carefully arrange the ROM chip data so the graphics you need at a given time are on a specific bankable window (or page or block if you prefer). RPGs often used CHR RAM so they could offer nearly any monster encounter combination.
The 2600 is extremely flexible because so much of its functionality has to be programmer defined. The 2600 doesn't have a framebuffer so you have to drive the TV picture yourself. This has the hidden advantage of being able to alter the TV picture by scanline, even mid-scanline if you are very skilled. It's tough because the 2600 game must be timed correctly, never a cycle too soon or too late for V-blank and drawing the screen. If you don't, you'll get broken graphics and probably loss of sync.
Another cool feature of the 2600 is it can display a surprisingly high number of colors, but only in a vertical manner. You can change the pixel color with every scanline, but not during a scanline.
Comments
Some of the late Atari games (1986-89) were pretty good for a console released in 1977. Double Dunk, Jr. Pac Man, Pete Rose Baseball.
The homebrew scene for the 2600 have made some amazing demakes of Megaman 2, Sonic, Halo, and Super Mario Bros.
They've also made superior ports of Donkey Kong & Pacman. Check out youtube for that stuff.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
Then half of the NES library was "cheating."
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
There are quite a few 2600 games that made use of extra RAM stored on the cart. IIRC Mountain King and other CBS games has a 2KB RAM chip on the cart. Pitfall 2 used a custom chip (DPC chip) that IIRC expanded memory, provided additional graphics capabilities, and 2 extra sound channels. Atari was basically doing what Nintendo did with the SuperFX chip 10 years early.
I dunno if this counts, but the Starpath Supercharger add-on and line of games showed what the 2600 was capable of with just 6KB more of RAM for games to work with. The 2600's only true RPG is a Starpath game:
The craziest thing about that is the Atari didn't have any memory so each part of the screen had to be redrawn for each frame. So yes, each new position of that bottom scanner had to be redrawn fresh each frame without storing anything in memory.
Atari 2600 did have memory, but only 128 bytes, which was shared between whatever you had and the screen, although you had no VRAM, meaning the screen did have to be redrawn fresh each frame. If it had no memory, how would it draw anything?
Pitfall II cheated by putting additional memory in the cartridge.
There are quite a few 2600 games that made use of extra RAM stored on the cart. IIRC Mountain King and other CBS games has a 2KB RAM chip on the cart. Pitfall 2 used a custom chip (DPC chip) that IIRC expanded memory, provided additional graphics capabilities, and 2 extra sound channels. Atari was basically doing what Nintendo did with the SuperFX chip 10 years early.
I dunno if this counts, but the Starpath Supercharger add-on and line of games showed what the 2600 was capable of with just 6KB more of RAM for games to work with. The 2600's only true RPG is a Starpath game:
Why mention SNES or SuperFX? Lots of NES games had CHR RAM instead of ROM.
ROM and RAM for read-only program execution really were equivalents. ROM was mapped to memory and was essentially a RAM expansion in the sense that it was all accessible in the memory map without using any of your actual work RAM. Loading a complete game into RAM means less work RAM available to your game.
If the Starpatch Supercharger expanded memory using a mapper or allowed multi-loading so that it's own RAM could increase the work RAM without reducing the size of the games, then great, but this isn't a simple matter of "RAM UPGRADE!" when we are talking about loading games from tape into RAM as opposed to having them already loaded in memory from cartridges.
The 2600 is extremely flexible because so much of its functionality has to be programmer defined. The 2600 doesn't have a framebuffer so you have to drive the TV picture yourself. This has the hidden advantage of being able to alter the TV picture by scanline, even mid-scanline if you are very skilled. It's tough because the 2600 game must be timed correctly, never a cycle too soon or too late for V-blank and drawing the screen. If you don't, you'll get broken graphics and probably loss of sync.
Another cool feature of the 2600 is it can display a surprisingly high number of colors, but only in a vertical manner. You can change the pixel color with every scanline, but not during a scanline.