Nerdy Nights

This is going to be a series of weekly NES programming lessons, starting from absolutely no knowledge. Right now the plan is 16-20 lessons ending with a complete game like pong or breakout. The first lessons may be easy but they will get harder! People who have done any type of programming before may have an easier time but anyone should be able to make it through. All the tools will be Windows based, so Linux users will have to use wine and MacOS users will have to use Parallels, Boot Camp, or VirtualPC.

Many things will simply not be covered in this series. No audio or scrolling will be done. Only the NROM mapper will be used. After you make it through all the lessons those will be much more simple than when you are first learning.

And finally these will not be without errors to begin with and may not be the absolute best way to do anything. People develop their own programming styles and this is just mine, which tends to be quickly written and not super efficient.

• 1. Number Systems
  • 1.1. Decimal
  • 1.2. Binary
  • 1.3. Hexadecimal
  • 1.4. Core Programming Concepts
• 2. NES Architecture Overview
  • 2.1. System Overview
  • 2.2. Graphics System Overview
• 3. 6502 ASM, first app
  • 3.1. Code Layout
  • 3.2. 6502 Processor Overview
  • 3.3. 6502 Assembly Overview
  • 3.4. 6502 Registers
  • 3.5. 6502 Instruction Set
  • 3.6. NES Code Structure
• 4. Color Palettes, Sprites, second app
  • 4.1. Palettes
  • 4.2. Sprites
• 5. multiple sprites, reading controllers, more instructions
  • 5.1. Multiple Sprites
  • 5.2. Controller Ports
  • 5.3. AND Instruction
  • 5.4. BEQ instruction
  • 5.5. CLC/ADC instructions
  • 5.6. SEC/SBC instructions
  • 5.7. Putting It All Together
• 6. Backgrounds
  • 6.1. Background Palette
  • 6.2. Nametables
  • 6.3. Attribute Tables
  • 6.4. Uploading the data
  • 6.5. Putting It All Together
• 7. subroutines, game layout, starting Pong
  • 7.1. Variables
  • 7.2. Constants
  • 7.3. Subroutines
  • 7.4. Better Controller Reading
  • 7.5. Game Layout
  • 7.6. Game State
  • 7.7. Putting It All Together
• 8. 16 bit math, pointers, nested loops
  • 8.1. 16 Bit Math
  • 8.2. Pointers and Indirect Indexed Mode
  • 8.3. Copy Loops
  • 8.4. Nested Loops
  • 8.5. Putting It All Together
• 9. Numbers, Bin to Dec
  • 9.1. BCD Mode
  • 9.2. Storing Digits
  • 9.3. Binary to Decimal Conversion
  • 9.4. Displaying Numbers
  • 9.5. Putting It All Together