Assembly Language Programming for the Atari Computers

Anyone who has programmed in BASIC, or any other language for that matter, can learn to program in assembly language. The ATARI is among the most impressive of all home computers, but many of its special features are not available from BASIC. The examples in this book are given both in assembly language and, wherever possible, also in BASIC programs which incorporate these assembly language routines to perform tasks from BASIC. You'll be able to use these routines immediately in your own pro-grams. Included are such techniques as reading the joysticks, moving players and missiles; input or output to all possible devices such as printers, disk drives, cassette recorders, the screen and more; vertical blank interrupt routines, display list interrupts, fine horizontal and vertical scrolling, sound, graphics; in short, everything you've always heard the ATARI computers were capable of, but had no idea how to program. lIThe routines in this book follow the 'rules' established by ATARI for assembly language programmers, so they will work with any ATARI com-puter, from the earliest 400 to the most advanced 14S0XLD, and every-thing in between. If you've reached the point where BASIC is no longer enough, and you'd like to progress to a language which gives you absolute control over all functions of your remarkable computer, then begin with Chapter 1, and you'll see how easy it is. Who knows, maybe you'll be the one to write the sequel to STAR RAIDERS!