Atari 2600 Game Development

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Posted by timothy on Tuesday February 4, 2003 @06:12AM from the support-your-local-thriftstore dept.

gjb6676 writes "An article over at ExtremeTech is covering recent game development projects on the Atari 2600. The amount of cartridge space they have to work with is a sobering thought: 'A two-word file in Word 2002, for example, requires 20 Kbytes. "That's 20 Kbytes, five times the amount of (ROM) space developers had to work with in the 2600.'"

11 of 311 comments (clear)

I think.. by Equidist · 2003-02-04 06:17 · Score: 5, Funny

I think that says more about Word 2002 than it does about the 2600.
Sobering thought? by Sloppy · 2003-02-04 06:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Is the "sobering thought" really the 2600's limit, or is it MS Word's docu-bloat? Remember that Moore's Law doesn't get you anything if Gates' Law is also in effect.
The trick is to exploit Moore's Law, and avoid Gates. Then technology becomes a Good Thing.

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4K by grub · 2003-02-04 06:19 · Score: 4, Funny

Can't fit much pr0n in 4K.

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Trolling is a art,
Re:Custer's Revenge by luzrek · 2003-02-04 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Since a 2 word Word 2002 document takes 20kB I don't think that the Xbox has enough resources for the MS version of a 2600 game.

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When I was a youngin' by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-04 06:21 · Score: 5, Funny

We paid a buck a byte, and we liked it! None of them fancy schmancy kilobytes, and most definately not 20 of em! With 20 of em, we could've written programs to launch people to the moon, and get em back safely again! And still had room to fit the bible in too! Heck, we could've done that in 10! You kids these days and your fancy megabytes, and gigabytes... I bet you've never had to walk to and from school up hill in both directions, either.
Re:oo.o rules by gewalker · 2003-02-04 06:24 · Score: 5, Funny

The bloat for a Word document is no doubt completely justified by its ability to host a virus capable of bring the Internet to its knees.
The 4K Atari cartridge ROM is only capable of enabling you to play a silly game on your television.
20kb by istartedi · 2003-02-04 06:24 · Score: 4, Funny

Well, if they didn't append your medical records to every Word file, it really wouldn't be that bad. :)

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Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-04 06:28 · Score: 5, Funny

Imagine that, programmers having to write efficient code for a change.
That would be great --- imagine it: every piece of software would take ten times as long to write and a hundred times as long to debug, and I'd see all the benefit of 17KB extra space on my 100GB hard drive. Where can I sign up to this marvellous dream?
Massively Parallel Word-Processing Supercomputer! by Tsar · 2003-02-04 06:40 · Score: 4, Funny

"A two-word file in Word 2002, for example, requires 20 Kbytes."

Did anyone else read that and think "10,240-BIT WORDS? What kind of workstation is that running on?"
Doom has been ported to everythinge else... by Dugsmyname · 2003-02-04 06:45 · Score: 4, Funny

Doom has been ported to everythinge else, I can't wait to see the 4Kb version on the Atari 2600.
Re:No offense but. . by Bastian · 2003-02-04 07:06 · Score: 4, Funny

at 18kb for the Word *.doc version of my term paper and 8kb for the OpenOffice *.sxw version, I don't think either of them would fit on an Atari 2600 cart.

Granted, the OpenOffice file is merely bloated while the Word one is reminiscent of the restauraunt scene in Monty Python's The Meanting of Life.