On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 2:21 PM, jim stephens <jwsm...@jwsss.com> wrote: > One thing you got on the 2600, was almost nothing to do your programming on. > There was the rom with lots of code space, but there was I think either 256 > or 512 bytes of ram total, and 1/2 of it was owned by the "system" such as > it was. Fun environment to code for. The processor was 6502.
It was actually even worse! The RAM was only 128 bytes total. However, none of it was dedicated; the programmer could, and in fact must, use it however they saw fit. There wasn't a "system"; the 2600 programmer was responsible for doing *everything*. It was only one small step removed from bit-banging the video; the TIA chip did a little bit of the work for you. Coding for the 2600 has been called "racing the beam", in reference to having to output video data in time for the electron beam of the CRT, and there's a good book about the history of the 2600 using that title. The 2600 is an amazing study in minimalist hardware.
