2023-01-21 6502 NES Course by Pikuma post

content/blog/2023-01-31_6502-nes-course-by-pikuma.rst

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+6502 NES Course by Pikuma
+#########################
+:author: tyrel
+:category: Tech
+:tags: 6502, assembly, NES
+:status: published
+
+As I mentioned in my `December <https://tyrel.dev/blog/2022/12/advent-of-code-2022-end-of-year-updates.html>`_ post I'm doing a 6502 course on `Pikuma. <https://pikuma.com/courses/nes-game-programming-tutorial>`_
+
+I'm about 75% of the way done, and I think I need to circle back to some earlier stuff about how the PPU works, but it's super fun.
+
+Over the holidays I was able to stop at my father's and pick up my old NES.
+I swapped out the ZIF connector for a new one, and cleaned up some contacts on the RCA ports, and it works great!
+Once I found out that it was working - I played Sesame Street ABC 123, as that's the only one I had up in my office - I ordered an EverDrive N8.
+That came last week.
+
+The pictures are tall due to how I took them, so sorry I'll attach them at the end of the post.
+
+Once I got the `EverDrive N8 <https://krikzz.com/our-products/legacy/edn8-72pin.html>`_ I made sure it worked by playing a Battletoads ROM.
+Battletoad tested - I then copied Atlantico.NES to my Everdrive.
+Atlantico is the game that Gustavo is walking us through making in the current part of the course - not a real published game.
+I loaded it up and HOLY COW - something I actually wrote in Assembly is running on real hardware.
+
+If you want to watch the video, it's very simplistic at the 75% mark, this was before the Collisions chapter, and no sound yet.
+`I posted about it on my Fediverse server <https://social.tyrel.dev/notice/ARxKt0GNrC0KJwvNsO>`_.
+
+The feeling of getting something running, locally, and seeing it working on screen, despite being a programmer for ~~20 years, is AMAZING.
+Writing code that executes on the system you grew up playing the early 90's, wow.
+
+I do wish the CRT TV my wife had was square, things get cut off on it.
+I even got a remote, so I could try to fix that in the menu, alas, only picture option is brightness.
+(Not that I realistically thought I could scale it, CRT Pixels are only Pixels.
+
+----
+
+Picture Gallery
+===============
+
+Trying out putting all the pictures at the end of my posts, if they are not directly related to paragraph content.
+
+.. figure:: {static}/images/2023/01/NES_Console.png
+   :alt: An NES Console with the flap opened up. On top is a Zapper gun with another controller, both with cables neatly wrapped up. On the floor, plugged in, in front of the NES, is another controller. The Power LED is on.
+
+   My NES plugged in and running.
+
+.. figure:: {static}/images/2023/01/NES_Atlantico.png
+   :alt: A CRT TV screen with a game running on it. In 8bit graphics, the game is a ship sailing to the right, with planes flying to the left. Some missiles are shooting up.
+
+   Atlantico game. There may be some interference with scanlines causing moire patterns, sorry.