Video Chess disassembled and commented
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Video Chess disassembled and commented
1–10 of 72 posts
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#2Now get it hooked up to lichess and see where its rating ends up.
I love the 2600 breakdowns and the hacks to get things working.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#3I think I’m pretty good at writing software, and then I see stuff like this, and the impostor syndrome kicks in hard. A fully working chess game in 4K of ROM, using each of the 128 bytes of RAM for several purposes? That’s some genius.
Bravo to OP for the disassembly and explanation, too!
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#4I think I’m pretty good at writing software, and then I see stuff like this, and the impostor syndrome kicks in hard. A fully working chess game in 4K of ROM, using each of the 128 bytes of RAM for several purposes? That’s some genius. Bravo to OP for the disassembly and explanation, too!
If you only had 4K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM you’d find a way. That’s what we all did back then. This isn’t to diminish Atari’s achievement (this stuff was super hard and also super satisfying), it’s just to say that doing these kinds of tricks was what you did when you wanted to create something state of the art with few resources.
Here’s a silly example: https://blog.jgc.org/2022/11/primality-testing-on-commodore-...
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#5I started developing software as a kid on a Commodore 64, and I thought we were pretty clever if we were able to accomplish interesting things using only 32KB of RAM. But the idea that somebody was able to develop a full chess engine using only 128 Bytes of RAM boggles my mind.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#6I think I’m pretty good at writing software, and then I see stuff like this, and the impostor syndrome kicks in hard. A fully working chess game in 4K of ROM, using each of the 128 bytes of RAM for several purposes? That’s some genius. Bravo to OP for the disassembly and explanation, too!
I've worked through all the 2600 programming books, including the authors. I've yet to start on anything of my own worth while. At one point I thought maybe I could start reverse engineering some games for some inspiration. Didn't get more than a few hours into it before I decided I'd just rather watch other people do great things with the 2600.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#7I think I’m pretty good at writing software, and then I see stuff like this, and the impostor syndrome kicks in hard. A fully working chess game in 4K of ROM, using each of the 128 bytes of RAM for several purposes? That’s some genius. Bravo to OP for the disassembly and explanation, too!
If you only had 4K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM you’d find a way. That’s what we all did back then. This isn’t to diminish Atari’s achievement (this stuff was super hard and also super satisfying), it’s just to say that doing these kinds of tricks was what you did when you wanted to create something state of the art with few resources. Here’s a silly example: https://blog.jgc.org/2022/11/primality-testing-on-commodore…
> That's what we all did back then.
I think you might be "suffering" from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Even if I accept that "all" the coders at that time were able to do this, that would just mean that the pool of people who were capable coders then is vastly more skilled than the typical coder these days.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#8I started developing software as a kid on a Commodore 64, and I thought we were pretty clever if we were able to accomplish interesting things using only 32KB of RAM. But the idea that somebody was able to develop a full chess engine using only 128 Bytes of RAM boggles my mind.
Imagine how easy it would be to tell people “Hey sorry we can’t include that feature, there’s not enough RAM” and then you could just build what you wanted to, exactly.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you only had 4K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM you’d find a way. That’s what we all did back then. This isn’t to diminish Atari’s achievement (this stuff was super hard and also super satisfying), it’s just to say that doing these kinds of tricks was what you did when you wanted to create something state of the art with few resources. Here’s a silly example: https://blog.jgc.org/2022/11/primality-testing-on-commodore…
> That's what we all did back then. I think you might be "suffering" from the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Even if I accept that "all" the coders at that time were able to do this, that would just mean that the pool of people who were capable coders then is vastly more skilled than the typical coder these days.
Anyone who wanted to push the limits of hardware at that time had to do tricks like this. There just wasn't any other choice. Sure, there were plenty of programmers back then who weren't capable. But it's not magic, it's careful thinking and hard work.
Re: Video Chess disassembled and commented
#10I think I’m pretty good at writing software, and then I see stuff like this, and the impostor syndrome kicks in hard. A fully working chess game in 4K of ROM, using each of the 128 bytes of RAM for several purposes? That’s some genius. Bravo to OP for the disassembly and explanation, too!
If you only had 4K of ROM and 128 bytes of RAM you’d find a way. That’s what we all did back then. This isn’t to diminish Atari’s achievement (this stuff was super hard and also super satisfying), it’s just to say that doing these kinds of tricks was what you did when you wanted to create something state of the art with few resources. Here’s a silly example: https://blog.jgc.org/2022/11/primality-testing-on-commodore…
That's perpetually true. "You're trying to do machine learning on a desktop PC?" "Hmmm, I wonder if we could use the GPU as a math engine?"
But holy cow, that chess game really pushed the limits!
(A side note I like to bring up occasionally: my first "computer" was "Atari BASIC" on my 2600. It had 63 bytes of RAM, I think. That didn't last long until my parents brought home a TS1000 with a luxurious 1KB of RAM.)