- 18 hours on-demand video content
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- Downloadable resources and exercises
- Certificate on completion
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- 14-day money back guarantee
- Last updated February 2023
What students are saying...
"Great introduction to scanlines! I only heard about this so far and never actually thought about the details. So this practical introduction was fantastic to close a knowledge gap hear. I have to deduct one star though for completely ignoring PAL here. This would have been very relevant to me as a European."
24 Mar 2024
"Strong foundation in 6502/6507 assembly for the Atari 2600!
The thing I loved about this course is that it really hammered home the fundamentals and built on them in every lesson. Gustavo made sure we were using the things we'd learned previously each step of the way so by the time I reached the end of the course, it was second nature.
A great example is the use of the carry flag for addition and subtraction operations. An easy thing to forget, but every time those operations were used in the code, Gustavo emphasized remembering to set and clear the carry flag.
That kind of attention to fundamentals helps them really stay with you, and I feel like I have a firm foundation to dive deeper into techniques used to produce a polished Atari 2600 game.
I found this course to be a tremendous value and highly recommend it!"
16 Jan 2024
"Excellent Learning of Atari 2600 Assembly Language Programming. The course instructor really takes the time to go over everything that's being taught, every line of code is explained. Excellent teacher."
22 Aug 2023
"Another Winner! So much can be learned from the technology of the past. And Gustavo is the perfect teacher. This course is the perfect synthesis of math, programming and fun."
15 Jun 2023
David Sowsy
"Simply great! The way this course was presented was clearer and more hands on than the assembly programming and architecture courses I took in college and it made a lot more sense. I would recommend this course to anyone interested in really getting a good feel for how it should be done."
24 Mar 2023
Dan Hunt
"Awesome educator! What an interesting way to learn 6502 assembly and get into the fine details of the Atari VCS with it's TIA, RIOT and registers. Very Thorough. Teacher makes hard to understand concepts easier to deal with."
13 Mar 2023
Joshua Flanagan
"Perfect way to tackle an intimidating subject! I’ve always wanted to know how games were made for these older systems, but I never knew where to start. It can be intimidating with all of the topics to learn (assembly language, specifics of hardware, how to actually compile and run a program). This course holds your hand the whole way through, assuming very little prior knowledge. Just what I needed!"
06 Jan 2023
Lorraine Figueroa
"Finally! Finally I am learning something I always wanted to do - program Atari 2600. This is a great course to learn how to program the Atari 2600. The steps are logical and I can pace myself. This course is well worth the price!!"
02 Oct 2022
Dimitrios Roussos
"I really enjoyed it! Too bad we didn't have such material back then at 90s. Of course, it's never too late, I really enjoyed it, fill some gaps. Once again, thank you very much professor."
27 Sep 2022
Samee Qazi
"Great review on Computer Architecture! Enjoying computer architecture like never before! Want to go back in time and score better grades! :-)"
12 Sep 2022
Alberto Calo
Mechanical Engineer
"Absolutely fantastic course with great content! By far one of the best and fun online courses I have ever enrolled till now! I have learnt a lot during this lovely journey and Gustavo has been a superb teacher! I can't recommend it enough!"
12 Jun 2022
Andres Mata
"Awesome course! This course really helped me to fill in the gaps. Gustavo is an excellent teacher and I enjoyed this journey to the intricacies of the VCS programming a lot."
15 Mar 2022
Francesco Puleio
"Well spoken and delivered, makes the process so far easy to follow and provides an understanding of the next progression in the journey."
14 Feb 2022
Pablo Sanchez
"Amazing course!I am so so so happy that I bought it! Gustavo is what I call a teacher by heart! You can tell that he enjoy teaching you stuff! If you want to learn something meaningful, just start looking at the beauty of Atari 2600 and his MOS 6507."
05 Jan 2022
William Wheelock
"I've spent the last 25 years writing code with high level programming languages and have only recently begun to explore the roots of the code. This was a highly informative and entertaining way to start learning assembly."
26 Apr 2021
Roman Agarounov
"Awesome course!
One of the best in the internet, learning a lot from it - very easy for beginners too!"
23 Apr 2021
Sam Pollard
"Would give 6 stars if I could. I can tell you that 'from scratch' is correct! - nothing is left out, everything is explained in crystal clear detail, and there's a perfect combination of theory and coding demos; Gustavo really knows how to teach. Highly recommended."
08 Nov 2020
Pierre Boberg
"Very good course to learn the basics of Assembly, a lots of tips and tricks and very good teacher. I enjoyed it very much."
22 Oct 2020
Rafael Munhoz
"Very Very nice course. I was alone trying to learn from a book but there are some concepts that were too hard to understand alone."
01 Oct 2020
Ajay Khanna
"As a long-time programmer, this course felt like a going on a great short vacation with an excellent guide. Gustavo informs everything with a delight in what can be achieved by clever hacking with limited means, and can be very subtle with depth (for example, I first thought the scoreboard was an odd choice for a long video, but it turns out that it involves some sweet bit-masking and opens the door to asymmetric playfield rendering)."
19 Jun 2020
Kevin Yeo
"Excellent course, well presented in a logical sequence. I've been going through this course and the material is very well presented and delivered in a sensible and logical order. There are times when I have struggled and this is down to the devil being in the detail. Assembly language and assemblers appear to be very picky, so sometimes things like spaces matter and make the difference between disaster and success. However, when I've scrutinised the problem it's been remedied by carefully analysing everything and being very exact. This shouldn't put you off, I've been meaning to learn some form of assembly language programming and the Atari and the 6502/6507 is the perfect platform, you don't even need a console."
16 May 2020
"This class is a great primer on the basic practical concepts you need to understand in order to make a game in 6502 assembly... I'm happy to say this class was one of the coolest things I've done in a while!"
05 May 2020
Javier Arzarello
"Muy buen curso.
Curso muy completo para la iniciación en la programación del Atari VCS, y en la iniciación en Assembly.
Muy bien dictado por Gustavo."
04 May 2020
Samuel Ward
"I think that Gustavo does a very good job of explaining the concepts, opcodes, syntax, etc. The video graphics are a superb addition. My only concern is this: I have a good bit of experience with Assembly language programming, so I am comfortable with the lessons and material; however, I wonder how someone with zero Assembly language programming experience will handle such a quick crash course. I am also a little skeptical that with the remaining 7 or 8 hours of instruction videos, Gustavo will cover enough material to give a new 6502/6507 programmer (like me) enough instruction to make that person comfortable / competent enough to actually write code for an Atari video game. I'm skeptical yet hopeful! So far I am pleased with the course."
10 Apr 2020
Antonio Herrera Martin
"Great Introduction. I has all the basic ingredients to start practicing and playing with the development of games for the Atari 2600, but it also can help to gain an insight in other similar consoles which possess similar characteristics."
31 Mar 2020
Jason Gilroy
"Great Course. This is a subject I have approached on my own on a few occasions, but this is the course that helped me finally get the basics down at a fundamental level. It is definitely a "101", but I think that is why it is effective. It strips away a lot of the complicating factors for assembly (and atari) newbies like timers and esoteric addressing modes and presents the absolute fundamental basics in well ordered and structured way. If I have a complaint it's that the very end of the course tries to cram in too much into too short a time. I would happily purchase an intermediate course on this subject with this instructor."
26 Jan 2020
Ajay Khanna
"So much fun. As a long-time programmer, this course felt like a going on a great short vacation with an excellent guide. GP informs everything with a delight in what can be achieved by clever hacking with limited means, and can be very subtle with depth (for example, I first thought the scoreboard was an odd choice for a long video, but it turns out that it involves some sweet bit-masking and opens the door to asymmetric playfield rendering). In this era when assembly programming on current platforms (x86 etc) has fewer applications (I think), I wonder if this is the right way to teach it: through constrained systems and games."
28 Dec 2019
Pedro Vicente
"Good. Very well concieved. keep the work and show more"
09 Dec 2019
Eren Fraser
"Makes assembly very accessible. I really gotta thank Gustavo for making this course, definitely allows people to get their feet into assembly and shake their fears, hopefully I plan to get involved more into 2600 homebrew development and maybe C64 or NES as well. Great to have someone making retro development more accessible by making comprehensive courses, would love to see more platforms as well (Teach MIPS ASM via N64/PSX development? :) ) Again, very accessible and fairly comprehensive, highly recommended."
16 Aug 2019
"Wish there was a second course, but I know what steps are next. This course provides the fastest path to foundation Atari 2600 game development that I'm aware of. I hope more people learn assembly game development for retro systems this way. My only complaint is that the pacing of the course lags at some points. I feel like I spent more time watching code being typed on screen than was necessary. It would have been better to cut and paste prior written code or to talk through code that had already been entered on screen. Overall, the step-by-step lessons provided are a world above trying to figure out what words to type into Google and jumping around from website to website. Why does it have to end here!"
07 Jul 2019
Nicole Durrant
"I've just about come to the end of the course and I have to say it's been a deeply enjoyable experience from beginning to end. The course covers most key points necessary to program games on the Atari 2600, even closing with creating an entire game on the system. If you are interested in learning about the Atari 2600, this is easily the most accessible and beginner friendly way to go about it. I would also recommend trying this course if you are simply interested in Assembly programming or learning about the fundamentals of computing."
08 Apr 2019
Milos Stojanovic
"Great course! Fantastic, engaging teacher, looks like a nice person, trying his best to explain things in simple way, the gift that every teacher should have. Keep up the good work, expecting more courses from you :)"
02 Apr 2019
Atari 2600 Programming
Learn 6502 assembly language programming games for the Atari VCS console.
This course includes:
$29.99
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