[link|http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=31|2600 Programming For Newbies]

While it's a primitive video game console, programming the Atari 2600 was anything but simple. The system consists of 128 bytes of RAM, used for both variables and the stack.

There is no video memory, the display is created raster line by raster line by updating the TIA chip in real time. For "simple" images, the TIA chip can be updated once at the start of each video line. For more advanced graphics, the TIA chip can be manipulated while the raster line is being drawn to overcome limitations such as color and quantity of graphic images. This trick requires precise counting of 6502 cycles.

Darrell Spice, Jr.                      [link|http://www.spiceware.org/cgi-bin/spa.pl?album=./Artistic%20Overpass|Artistic Overpass]\n[link|http://www.spiceware.org/|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore