Contents -- Introduction -- Chapter 1 Bringing Your Retro Machine to Life -- Setting Up Your TRS-80 Color Computer -- Color Computer Storage Devices -- Setting Up Your Atari 400/800 -- Installation Instructions -- Installing the Power Supply -- Connecting the Atari to a Monitor -- Connecting Your Atari to a TV -- Installing Your Disk Drive -- Connecting the Joystick -- Setting Up Your Commodore 64 -- Setting Up Your Apple II -- Chapter 2 Simply Complicated Game Programming -- Game Systems: Similar but Different -- Assembly Dialect -- The Memory Map -- CPU, Bus, and Memory Characteristics -- BASIC 101 -- Principles of BASIC -- The Variable Principle -- The Input Principle -- The Listing Principle -- The Math Principle -- The Logic Principle -- The Screen Mode Principle -- The Graphics Principle -- The Branch Principle -- The Looping Principle -- Chapter 3 The Early History of Video Games -- Build It and They Will Come! -- Noughts and Crosses -- Willy Higinbotham's Game -- In a Land Far, Far Away -- Spacewar! -- The 1960s -- Return of the Killer Pong -- Spot Generators -- The Odyssey -- The Syzygy -- Atari and Pong -- The Knockoff -- Big Business -- The Birth of Vector Graphics -- Space Wars -- A New Age of Video Games -- Space Invaders -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 Assembly Language -- Understanding Assembly Language -- Moving Memory Around in Your Computer -- Understanding Numbers and Math in Assembly Language -- Addressing Modes -- Working with the Stack -- System Flags -- Logic and Branching Instructions -- Facing the Code -- 6502 Programming -- Sweet 16 -- 6809 Programming -- Conclusion -- Chapter 5 A Game Graphics Primer -- Color -- What Makes a Picture? -- Approximating Shapes with Limited Pixels -- Symbolism -- Visual Cues -- Putting Them Together -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 Setting the Video Mode -- Setting the Video Mode.

Setting the Video Mode on the COCO -- Setting the Video Mode on the Apple II -- Setting the Video Mode on the Atari 400/800 -- How Does the Display List Interrupt Work? -- Timing Considerations -- Multiple Display List Interrupts -- Create a Generic Display List -- Find the Location of Your Display List in Memory -- Find the Start of Video Memory -- Creating Your New Display List -- The Load Memory Scan Instruction -- Inserting the Remaining ANTIC Mode 2 Lines -- A Look at What You Have So Far -- Switching Back to Video Memory -- Polishing Off the Display List -- And Then There Was Light -- A More Advanced Display List -- Creating a Generic Display List -- Inserting Text Mode Lines -- What's Next? -- Writing DLI Interrupts -- Writing a Display List -- Writing the Code for Your Display List Interrupt -- Guarding the Computer's Memory -- Writing the Actual Heart of the Display List Interrupt -- Converting Assembly Language Code to Decimal -- Inserting the Display List into Memory -- Setting the Video Mode on the Commodore 64 -- Conclusion -- Chapter 7 Hacking the Video Buffer -- Identify the Characteristics of the Current Graphics Mode -- Video Buffer Hacking 101 -- Placing Data in the Video Buffer -- Page Flipping -- Conclusion -- Chapter 8 Adding Player Input, Physics, and AI -- Creating Your Computer's Intelligence -- Tracking Algorithms -- Evasion Algorithms -- Better Tracking and Evasion Algorithms -- Patterns -- Random Movement -- Fuzzy Logic -- Reading Player Input -- Modeling Game Physics -- Thrust -- Friction -- Gravity -- Putting All the Forces Together -- Conclusion -- Chapter 9 Sound Effects -- How Sound Works in the Real World -- Mimicking Real World Sounds on a Retro Game Machine -- Computers with Special Sound Hardware -- The Commodore 64 -- The Atari 400/800 -- Basic Sound Command -- Assembly Sound Programming -- Conclusion.

Chapter 10 Putting It All Together: Building Games -- The Universal Game Structure -- Initialization -- The Game Loop -- Cleanup -- Programming Text-Based Games -- What Is a Text-Based Game? -- Building Your First Text-Based Game -- The Story -- The Lay of the Land -- Creating Things That Go Bump in the Night -- Tools of the Trade -- Creating a Language for Your Game -- Writing the Code for Your Game -- Mapping Out Your Program -- Mapping Out Your World -- Jumping from Text-Based Games to Graphics-Based Games -- Conclusion -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z.