| Astrocade html color palette | Bally Astrocade Color Table, as seen on an NTSC television (256 unique colors). |
| Astrocade Screen Layout Sheet | Once you are programming the Astrocade a bit, and setting up a screen, you may find that this sheet that I created for personal may come in handy. 1 page. |
| Astrocade Z-80 Mini-course | Bally Arcade mini-course written specifically for use with Bally BASIC. 46 Pages. |
| Bally System Description |
This is part of the 'Nutting' Manual that was excerted by the Cursor newsletter and released as a separate
document. It contains a massive amount of useful, well presented, understandable information. If you
want a slightly technical, yet general overview of the way that the Astrocade works, then read this.
If it interests you, then move on to the full 'Nutting' Manual, which explains how to program the
Astrocade using the on-board ROM subroutines. 63 pages. Bally System Description (Searchable Document) |
| Bit Fidder's Corner, The | The Bit Fidder's Corner is an Astrocade machine language programming tutorial that ran as a series of serialized articles in the Arcadian newsletter in 1983 and 1984. The Author, Andy Guevara, programmed the Machine Language Manager cartridge for the Astrocade. This tutorial complements that cartridge, but has a general focus so this information can be used without reinterpretation by Astrocade assembly programmers, or those wishing to learn about the machine. This zip file contains the article in text, RTF and PDF format. 7 pages. |
| Cartridge Making Instructions | By Leroy Flamm. Explains how make a cartridge from a tape program. 2 pages |
| Crime Stropper Tips | By Mike Skala. This article enables the programmer to use Hook Vectors to protect, as best possible, any software written in AstroBASIC from being copied, disassembled, etc. 3 pages. |
| Machine Language Manager Docs | The complete documentation for the Machine Language Manager cartridge. 50 pages |
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(1-68) (69-102) (103-143) | 'Nutting Manual' - This manual is actually called The Handbook of Hardware + Software, but is nicknamed for the hardware documentation that Dave Nutting Associates, Inc. released in 1978. The Bally FAQ has this to say, 'Source of most of the programming support for most of the arcade quality games made for the Bally/Astrocade systems.' If that isn't a recommendation, then I don't know what is. Thanks to Frank Palazzo for scanning this in and Rob Mitchell for pointing it out. I have broken the manual into three parts (about 2.3 MB each) to make it more managable. Finally, if anyone has this manual without the Propietary Information' overlay, let me know (when you see the manual, you will see what I mean). 143 pages. |
| DNA 'Nutting' Manual | Same as 'Nutting Manual, but this has been retyped. The file size is smaller, the text is searchable and, of course, there is no 'Propietary Information overlay. 172 pages. |
| DNA 'Nutting' Manual | Same as 'Nutting Manual, but this has been retyped and is the original Word 2000 document that was used to create the searchable pdf file. 172 pages. |
| Peek 'n Poke Manual | Good introduction to Astrocade Programnming. 38 pages |
| Peek 'n Poke Manual | Good introduction to Astrocade Programnming. This version is in Rich Text Format. 38 pages |
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"Hello, World!" Tutorial By Adam Trionfo This tutorial describes how to get a "Hello World" program running on a Bally Arcade / Astrocade. This article is aimed at those who want to get started programming the Astrocade using an assembler. For those people playing with classic systems, the words "assembler" and "assembly language" are thrown around rather often with little or no explanation of what the words mean. If you're just playing cartridges on your Bally/Astrocade, or loading a few BASIC programs, then there is no reason to understand how the game cartridges work. However, if the idea of what is going on DOES interest you, then this article will benefit you. After you finish reading, you will not only have a better understanding of an assembler, but you will also know how to use one. The latest version of the source code for this tutorial can be found here. |
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How to Use the Blue Ram Basic "PLAY%( ) Command By George Moses Arcadian, June 1983, Page 128 and August 1983, Page 156 This tutorial has minor revisions and corrections by Richard Degler and Adam Trionfo. The PLAY command can be directly related to machine language programming and the music synthesizer. This article makes a perfect companion piece to the "Nutting Manual's" Music Processor section (pages 56-60) and Bally Arcade's audio information (103-105). This revised tutorial is also available as a Rich Text Document. The contents are the same, but the sections are broken up a bit and some bolding is used. here. The original version, scanned from the Arcadian newsletter, is available here. The original version is available in text format here. |
| Programming Sheets | Programming sheets specifically for the Bally / Astrocade. These different sheets contain: BASIC Programming Pad, Z-80 Programmer's Pad, CX Value Screen Graph Paper, and Screen and Graphic Graph Paper. 9 Pages. |
| Vector Animation Tutorial |
By Lance F. Squire. A step-by-step tutorial (with source code). This is version 1.03. This tutorial is quite good; read it. Included in this archive are Word, pdf and odt versions of the document. Lance frequents the Bally Alley discussion group, so if you have any questions you can ask him about them there. 17 pages |
| Astrocade BIOS Comparison | Text and Pictures - Explains the forty-one byte difference between the Bally Arcade's 3159 ROM and white ROM. This answers some long sought after questions. 5 pages |
| Z-80 Source-Code Tips |
By Richard Degler A few tips on creating easy-to-read source code. |
