The Atari MC68000 Tutorials

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:14 pm

I have written 15 tutorials in all, taking you from the beginning steps to a somewhat intermediate level of programming skills in assembly language on the Atari ST(e). If you begin to read this tutorials and follow them, you'll have everything you need at your disposal, and when finnished (or in the middle) you can branch out as you will and search further information.

I've posted all the tutorials here for your viewing and downloading pleasure. Each tutorial will have it's own topic for discussion. This rather big expo of my work was actually suggested by silver surfer, so before you begin to smack me for the biggest ego in the world, please consider this

In this sticky post, will be all the 15 tutorials in a big zip, however, any discussion related coding and the individual tutorials are to be directed into the proper topis.
This topic will only concern the possible future and present (and past) of the tutorials as such, not the contents.
Thus proper things to discuss here are "will you make a pdf", "will you make more" and to generally state that the tutorials suck or are great. Individual comments are to take place in the suitable sub-topics.

thank you for reading and hope this may be an inspiration (to do better)

While it may seem I'm now the great guru having pulled off these tutorials, I want to take this moment to appear humble and say that there are many much more skilled coders than I on the forum. The gyes who know the real stuff like cracking, and the persons who can make good looking demos. I'm just a friendly amateur with (hopefully) an ability to spread the little knowledge I posess.

mbricout · Post by **mbricout** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 12:21 am

Hi Perihelion,

I use your material in parallel with another one (written in French by Feroce Lapin) and I find it extremely helpful, as it covers some of the ST's tips and tricks (such as the Timer B related stuff) which are otherwise hard to find in a commented form.

One note though: the 1st article is in RTF format, while the rest of the tutorials is saved as Word 2000 documents. Not a big deal for most users I guess, but I got stuck one entire weekend with no way to open the documents

(I was stuck somewhere in the wild with just an old w98 laptop to work with).

I like the tone of the articles: it makes them fun to read.

Thanks for your nice work,
Michael

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:26 am

Yes, the format of the articles have been critisiced before

Perhaps rtf format is a much better choice, since I don't think it will loose any formatting ... is that more accessible?

I like the tone of the articles: it makes them fun to read.

Thanks, I try to

Cyrano Jones · Post by **Cyrano Jones** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:42 am

Don't forget that the source code to my D-Bug intro screens is available from the D-Bug website.

I will have another source package available soon, containing the complete source for Apathetic Games - I just need to locate a few more files to complete it.

Post by **simonsunnyboy** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:02 am

RTF is definitly a better choice

However I will try to create some PDF with OpenOffice.
Never thought about that but should be possible as I remember reading the tuts with it - and PDF converting is a single click so what.

Chetic · Post by **Chetic** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:07 am

wow, Cyrano Jones. That could be great for learning.

I'm trying to start out with coding for the ST right now.. I have STOS on a floppy for the old Atari but I couldn't find any tutorials on it..

I also got GFA Basic yesterday, it looks like that would be my type of language but I can't type '=' so that's a major setback

ASM Looks so extremly different from anything I've ever done before so I'm scared to even try it..
Looks hard too, can't make much sense out of it.. (I'm sure these tutorials would be quite helpful if I one day decide to face my fear though

)

Oh and please don't save in a microsoft format Perihelion (RTF is fine

)

Cyrano Jones · Post by **Cyrano Jones** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:21 am

Chetic wrote:wow, Cyrano Jones. That could be great for learning.

Thanks, thats why they're there.

ASM is not so difficult once you get your head around the basics. Personally, I find it easier than fighting my way through the increasingly complicated syntax structure of High Level Langauges - or as is becoming more common - trying to find the damn tab to click in a properties window (they call that programming????)

Post by **simonsunnyboy** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:51 am

I've converted the .doc files into .pdf with OpenOffice.
The PDFs are readable with Acrobat Reader on my Linux box so they shoudl do in Windoze as well.

Have fun!

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:48 am

Great, thanks sonny!
I've liked pdf as well for quite some time, and yes, I can't have a M$ format document now can I?
Will have to do something about this ... and pdf should be viewable on every platform (more or less) .. damn, will be a repack of the zips again.

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:10 pm

I'm using your pdf files now sunny ... and it struck me as I zipped everything that perhaps another packer format would be more suitable ... isn't lha some old format ... or is that overdoing it??

Chetic · Post by **Chetic** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:14 pm

Erm yeah LHA is an old format.. I'm sure it's pretty good too
but It's not used by most nowadays.
Zip or RAR imo

Post by **simonsunnyboy** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 4:43 pm

Using (PK-)Zip should be the standard and as you can unpack it on Ataris with STZIP as well, I see no need to change the format.

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 9:04 pm

Gah! Now I've changed all the tuts ... not something I want to do again.
There it is, I hope everything is as it should ...

bpadinha · Post by **bpadinha** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 12:25 am

I still have that single file with all the tuts (up to 13 that is) and appendixes (op-code tables, etc.) all nicely formated and easy to convert into a pdf with index et all. Let me know if you want it.

bp

Chetic · Post by **Chetic** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 7:29 pm

omfg

Since you donÂ’t have poo for brains, you will know that when you double click on a .prg file (known as .exe files on a PC)

I find that offensive. No, not the poo for brains part but the .exe files on a PC part.
They're only known as .exe on windows mind you

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 7:29 am

.exe files on a PC part.
They're only known as .exe on windows mind you

At first I thought, "oh my god he's right", then my self preservation logic started to kick in. It all comes down to semantics.
The term PC as we know means Personal Computer. Thus an Atari, Mac, IBM-compatible, you name it, is a PC. However, we only seem to use this term concerning IBM-compatibles now adays. Even apple say PC about that other system which is not theirs. Then it also struck me that PC even refers to using the OS Windows on the IBM-compatibles (and I wonder if IBM-compatible is such a great term, as they nowadays make power pc processors which are mainly used in apples computers).
Thus, a PC seems to refer to what is also called a Wintel computer.
(on a lesser subject, the point of the .exe on windows was pedagogical, and since you got my point, the point got through eh)

how did I do?
Also, shouldn't this topic go into whatever sub tutorial the text appeared in?

Chetic · Post by **Chetic** » Sat Aug 14, 2004 8:32 am

So you're telling me that I don't have a PC?
What is this I'm typing on?.. hehe

The tutorial pwns I'll tell ya that.
Almost scared me away but that was the language's fault

gwEm · Post by **gwEm** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 12:27 pm

i looked at some of your tuts and found them interesting.

but i have a suggestion for your work, and that is an appendix containing a list of useful documents for reference.

i know that when i'm coding, I always come back to the same docs for info.

perhaps some of these would feature well on such a list:

ASCII table
VT52 Conctrol Code table
Picture of atari keyboard layout
68000 instruction set
IKBD document
S.A.L.A.D. (still another line-a document)
David Hollis Memory map
GEMDOS document
List of OS Traps
Atari compendium (a very good collection, but somehow i dont find myself using it)
ASM Book by EARX (useful for inspiration)

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:02 pm

About half of the things you request are in the tutorials, though perhaps not that formatted since each tutorial stands more or less on its own.
However, feast your eyes on the new file I added (in the first post).
A fantastic document brought to you by bp, who single handedly formatted all the tutorials with resources and the whole load. Tutorials 1-13 are covered, you gotta nag him to bring the final two into the world.

thanks again bruno for this!

gwEm · Post by **gwEm** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:09 pm

About half of the things you request are in the tutorials, though perhaps not that formatted since each tutorial stands more or less on its own.

exactly, nice to have a fast reference once you already know how things work...

bpadinha · Post by **bpadinha** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 4:31 pm

That was precisely the idea behind adding the appendixes to the formatted tuts. Your list has nice additional suggestions, I'll look into adding them as well when I find the time (and inspiration)!

perihellion: the version I've sent you already has tuts 14 and 15 as well.

Cheers,

bp

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 7:48 am

bpadinha wrote:the version I've sent you already has tuts 14 and 15 as well.

Wow, great. I hardly looked at it, sorry. I suppose I trust you almost to much hehe

hmmm, perhaps we shoud do a repack, adding only the nicely formatted document and all needed resources into one zip as well.

Well, if anyone has further suggestions about contents, talk to my fantastic editor, meanwhile I'll just kick back and enjoy life

(seriously, of course you should talk to both of us, but at the moment my enthusiasm is less than obvious, as you can see on the tutorial dates if nothing else, but if you need help with javascript or simmilar client side (x)html needs, just ping me)

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:54 am

UPDATED VERSION of the "nicely formatted .pdf file"
I also played around with some of the functions of Adobe Acrobat so now the index list wil be clickable

thanks goes to bruno for his work!

Post by **Dal** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:03 pm

At last, some docs that explain assembly in a captivating way!!

Just a couple of things - you mention on page 26 that ALT-Z steps through runtime line-by line - this should read CTRL-Z.

Also, Where can I get some sample FONT.PI1's for playing with scrollers???

Dal.

Perihelion · Post by **Perihelion** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 9:58 pm

thanks

isn't the font file (or rather, the degas elite file) in the ALLTUTS.ZIP package somewhere? Most likely in the same directory of the tut you're reading?

I appreciate the typo feedback, but to be brutally honest, I won't spend the time updating it since I'm on extended leave right now

(I've quit atari and assembly in favour of webbapps and especially ruby on rails)

If nothing else, I'll blame my editor

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