De Re Atari
A Guide to Effective Programming
By Chris Crawford, Lane Winner, Jim Cox, Amy Chen, Jim Dunion, Kathleen Pitta, Bob Fraser, and Gus Makreas

Table of Contents

Preface

1. System overview

2. ANTIC and the display list

• Television Displays
• Computers and Televisions
• ANTIC, a Video Microprocessor
• Building Display Lists
• Writing to a Custom Display List Screen
• Applications of display lists

3. Graphics indirection (color registers and characters sets)

• Color registers
• Character sets
• Applications of character sets

4. Player-Missile Graphics

• Difficulties with High-Speed Animation
• Player-Missile Fundamentals
• Vertical Motion
• Horizontal Motion
• Other Player-Missile Features
• Missiles
• Player and Playfield Priorities
• Hardware Collision Detection
• Applications of Player-Missile Graphics
• Special Characters

5. Display List Interrupts

• Theory of Operation
• DLI Timing
• DLI Example
• Attract Mode
• Detailed Timing Considerations
• Multiple DLIs
• Kernels
• Applications of Display List Interrupts

6. Scrolling

• Horizontal Scrolling
• Fine Scrolling
• Applications of Scrolling

7. Sound

• Definition of Terms and Conventions
• Sound Hardware
  • AUDF1-4
  • AUDC1-4
  • Volume
  • Distortion
  • Volume Only Sound
  • AUDCTL
  • Clocking
  • 16-Bit Frequency options
  • High Pass Filters
  • 9-Bit Polynomial Conversion
• Sound generation Software Techniques
  • Static Sound
  • Dynamic Sound
  • BASIC Sound
  • 60-Hz Interrupt
  • Machine-Code Sound Generation
  • Volume Only Sound

8. Operating system

• Introduction
• The Monitor
• Memory Management
• Interrupt Processing Structure
• System Vectors
• The Centralized Input/Output Subsystem
• Real-Time Programming
• Floating Point Package

9. The disk operating system

• The Resident Disk Handler
• File Management Utility
• Disk Utility Package
• Random Access
• FMS Disk Utilization
• AUTORUN.SYS file

10. Atari BASIC Overview

• What is ATARI BASIC?
• How ATARI BASIC Works
• The Tokenizing Process
• The Token File Structure
• The Program Execution Process
• System Integration
• Improving Program Performance
• Advanced Programming Techniques

Appendices

• A. Memory Utilization
• B. Human Engineering
• C. ATARI Cassette Overview
• D. Television Artificats
• E. GTIA

Glossary

Programmer's Card

Index of Illustrations

Software Archive

This site maintained by Kay Savetz. De Re Atari is copyright © 1982 by Chris Crawford, et al, and is posted on www.atariarchives.org with the permission of the author. Do not redistribute, mirror, or copy this online book.