
A constructive look at the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge (2015) - pjotrligthart
http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1
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mikestew
Yeah, what a disappointment _that_ purchase turned out to be with my precious
allowance money. As noted, it had an impressive IDE for the horrifically
limited abilities of the machine, but that didn't make up for the fact that
your working set (if I might use that term very loosely) was measured in
bytes. There just wasn't much to be done with it other than "print 'mikestew
is awesome'; goto 10".

It makes for a cool party trick, but not something to charge unsuspecting
children money. I got more value out of the 2600 version of PacMan
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-
Man_(Atari_2600)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man_\(Atari_2600\)) ).

~~~
eej71
The Magnavox Odyssey 2 offered "Computer Intro!" which was something similar.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGUfEbHt84g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGUfEbHt84g)

~~~
joezydeco
I had Computer Intro! (The "!" is part of the name, I'm not that enthusiastic
about it)

It was more machine language than BASIC:

[http://www.ozyr.com/o2/o2comput.html](http://www.ozyr.com/o2/o2comput.html)

 _" Your Odyssey2 can make over 100,000 electronic decisions every second -
and there are computers around that are more than ten times faster than
that!"_

------
pfarrell
When I first started getting serious about programming in the early 00's, I
thought, I'll figure out how to code a game for the 2600. Those games are so
simple, it must be easy to work with. I couldn't have been more wrong. Imagine
coding a game without sprites, objects, threads, or anything really. At a high
level, coding a game on Atari 2600 consists of timing the toggling of the beam
that is racing left to right and back throwing light onto the tv screen. You
literally build screens off that!

On the plus side, when that finally clicked, a lot of the mystery of how a
computer worked finally made sense and I could now understand the abstractions
on top of abstractions that allow me to just instantiate a sprite instead of
having to manage hardware directly.

I never did create that game.

~~~
userbinator
On the other hand, the demoscene has been able to show us what the 2600 can
_really_ do if pushed hard enough:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WogMZn87hkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WogMZn87hkk)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCJM7b9EMU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcCJM7b9EMU)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWq6AOqCLkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWq6AOqCLkA)

~~~
egypturnash
Holy crap.

------
coldacid
Atari 2600 BASIC was terrible and completely useless, but the fact that it
existed and worked at all given the constraints of the 2600 is nothing short
of miraculous.

~~~
wslh
> Atari 2600 BASIC was terrible and completely useless

How old where you? As a child I had the Atari 2600 before owning a computer
and just "typing" and executing a few lines of code was an exciting
experience. Sadly that was my fantasy because I never had that cartridge but
remember reviewing the BASIC picture in the Atari catalog again and again.

~~~
coldacid
My first exposure to computers was with a Commodore 64, on which I had also
first learnt to code. I wasn't even aware of the 2600 until later. Compared to
what I could do on the C64, 2600 BASIC _was_ useless. Doesn't make it any less
of a technical marvel, though.

~~~
wslh
Useless means different things to different people, it is a subjective
quality. It was useless for production use but not useless as a child
experience where you don't have any access to computers. I can say the same to
the first programmable calculators.

------
hcs
This program was by Warren Robinett, of Adventure fame; both were released in
1979. He later went on to write Rocky's Boots for the Apple II, a rather more
successful educational game involving logic gates.

~~~
gooseyard
his easter egg in Adventure absolutely blew my mind

~~~
sokoloff
It blew my mind as a kid. Now, knowing about the hardware available on the
2600, it’s way, way more impressive.

~~~
mgkimsal
Same feelings here. I read "racing the beam" a couple years back - the
limitations and inventiveness to get around said limitations were both crazy.

About 13 years, I was reminiscing about Adventure, searched around a bit, and
found Warren Robinett's email address. I wrote a fan email, and ... got a nice
thank you email back! I was ecstatic! I later moved down to the Raleigh area,
and, last I understood, he was working around the Chapel Hill area, so our
paths may one day yet cross :)

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EvanAnderson
The "IF statement is an expression" functionality is neat. I don't think I've
seen another BASIC that does that.

~~~
ddingus
Atari BASIC is close:

A = (B < 5)

Will put the result of comparison into variable A.

~~~
classichasclass
Actually, many BASICs will do this. What's unique about the 2600's IF syntax
in this situation is that it's functioning almost like a ternary operator.

~~~
ddingus
Agreed. I was unaware many BASICs will do that.

And, yes that is a cool construct. Makes the most of the limited environment.

------
mcfunk
This really makes me want to fire up the BASIC cartridge for my Atari 400.

~~~
mschaef
Does your Atari 400 still have a working keyboard?

~~~
ddingus
Mine does, but some keys require a pretty hard press.

~~~
mschaef
I can relate... I never used an Atari 400, but did spend several afternoons
entering code into a Timex-Sinclair 1000 (or ZX-81 if you prefer).

(There the big problem wasn't so much the keyboard as it was the 16K memory
expansion falling off the back of the machine while you were typing. Just
writing that makes me SO thankful modern hardware is as good as it is...)

~~~
ddingus
I had one of those for a short time. Glitch city!

No kidding. We live in an amazing time hardware wise.

