yosh@hou2e.UUCP (M.CHING) (12/18/84)
The Atari 2600 is a 6502 based computer. If memory serves me correctly, It has 4k of RAM, which is multiply mapped every 16k. The graphics are very difficult to manipulate, suited more toward development of "Tank" graphics than the fantastic effects found in "Tunnel Runner". The easiest way to get documentation is to go to an Atari service rep and offer him a few bucks for a copy of the manual. Dave Bloom former CBS Electronics employee before the "United Way" meeting.....
dave@timeinc.UUCP (David Mutterer) (12/18/84)
> > > > The Atari 2600 is a 6502 based computer. If memory serves me correctly, > It has 4k of RAM, which is multiply mapped every 16k. The graphics are > very difficult to manipulate, suited more toward development of "Tank" > graphics than the fantastic effects found in "Tunnel Runner". > > The easiest way to get documentation is to go to an Atari service rep > and offer him a few bucks for a copy of the manual. > > Dave Bloom > former CBS Electronics employee before > the "United Way" meeting..... Actually... it's cpu is a smaller version of the 6502 and has a TOTAL address space of 4K... the ram that is actually inside of the 2600 is a mesily 128 bytes... and the video chip that is in there happens to be a pretty powerful one... the problem is the video chip does not have it's own memory, so the cpu has to feed it the graphic information at every horizontal line scan of the tv... and the other problem is that the chip cannot interrupt the cpu... so the cpu has to wait for a signal from the chip by polling it... that cuts down on the amount of proccessing time that you can spend on the game itself... the so called hi-res games for the 2600 get around this by having another ram chip in the game cartridge itself.. then they can calculate what should be on the next line to go to the video chip and start on the next line ahead of time.. -- David Mutterer [vax135|ihnp4]!timeinc!dave "Any opinions expressed herein are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Time Incorporated."