It's odd how something like a simple book from your past can spark up memories. When I was about 14, my best friend and I used to rent Apple II software from a local shop near the airport. They had about 2 shelves worth of Apple II games and probably VHS cassettes in the rest of the place. One day, a very fine book magically appeared on the shelf of this rental store: Apple Graphics & Arcade Game Design by Jeffrey Stanton. In his book he demonstrates via real 6502 assembly language by creating a defender-clone! I can't remember much else but in those days it was a real gem and we were thankful. Amongst all the 6502-reference books out there this one really stood out. This book was our most beloved possession and we actually kept it in a zip-lock bag when it was not in use!
So I managed to track down the author's biography and here is what I came up with. The thing I find the most interesting is that the Apple // book was merely a side project in his life. I somehow expected him to be this established game programmer. Just goes to show ya!
The best part is that I managed to score a copy of this book on Ebay and I eagerly await its arrival. I will be sure to bust out my copy of BigMac Assembler so I can test out the sample code! Perhaps I'll post some of the code in another post. Read More...
