Appendix C
For More Information
You can't say everything there is to say about Atari assembly language in just one volume. So here's a list of books you may want to check out, browse through, and perhaps even buy as you continue your study of assembly language programming. I found many of these books to be quite helpful when I was learning assembly language, and some of them still come in handy today. Two books that are practically indispensable to Atari assembly language programmers -- although they can sometimes be impossibly difficult to understand -- are De Re Atari and The Atari 400/800 Technical Reference Manual, both published by Atari.
Other useful Atari produced books include the Atari BASIC Reference Manual, the Atari Assembler Editor Reference Manual, and The Atari 400/800 Operating System Source Listing. There's also a very good general user's guide to Atari computers called, logically enough, Your Atari Computer. It was written by Ian Poole with Martin McNiff and Steven Cook. It's mostly about programming in BASIC, but it also contains a wealth of information that's useful, if not indispensable, to Atari assembly language programmers. For owners of Atari XL series computers, there's also User's Guide to the Atari 600XL and 800XL (New York: Macmillan, 1983).
Generic Books
There are several good generic books on 6502 assembly language programming. Two of the best are Programming the 6502 by Rodnay Zaks (Berkeley: Sybex, 1980) and 6502 Assembly Langauge Programming by Lance A. Leventhal (Berkeley: Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 1979). Leventhal is also the co-author (with Winthrop Saville) of 6502 Assembly Language Routines, an excellent book that contains many assembly language subroutines you can use in your own programs. Another generic book that contains some interesting routines is the 6502 Software Gourmet Guide & Cookbook by Robert Findley (Rochelle park, NJ: Hayden, 1979).
Atari-specific Guides
There are also a few small books that deal specifically with Atari assembly language programming. They have their flaws, buy you may be able to find something useful in them. Two Atari specific books are The Atari Assembler by Don and Kurt Inman (Reston, VA: Reston Publishing Co., Inc., 1981) and How to Program Your Atari in 6502 Machine Language by Sam D. Roberts (Pomona, CA: Elcomp Publishing, Inc., 1982).
There are a couple of other Atari specific books that have limited aims, but fulfill them very nicely. One is the Master Memory Map for Atari 400/800 Computers by Robin Alan Sherer, published in 1982 by Educational Software Inc. The other is Mapping the Atari by Ian Chadwick (COMPUTE! Books, Greensboro, NC, 1983).
There are also a few assembly language texts that were written for 6502 based computers other than Ataris, but still contain information that can be very helpful to Atari programmers. These works include Using 6502 Assembly Language by Randy Hyde (Chatswroth, CA: DATAMOST, Inc., 1982), and Assembly Lines: The book by Roger Wagner (North Hollywood, CA: Softalk Publishing, 1982).
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