02-Tempest Video Game Hacking - EPROM Disassembly 

I was born on January 21st, 2003, and assembly is still awesome!

Just here to say thanks for the task manager you gifted to the world:) You have no idea how many times it helped haha.

The only assembly code I have done was for Z80 and, yes, 6502. I never thought I'd be looking at it again! Fun and very nostalgic stuff. Thanks, Dave.

THE man that wrote task manager! Just for that you've deserved my sub, rock on Dave!

Holy smokes this guy is absurdly smart

Yeah, I was born in March of '04 and I honestly find this stuff quite interesting.

Born in the sixties myself. Played with 6502, z80 and 68000 assembly as a hobby. The only serious stuff I used assembly for was 16550 uart code in the late eighties to link with my c code while writing terminal software. I'm just getting back into it now playing with Ben Eater's projects and your videos. Keep up the great work! It brings back so many memories and reminds me how I got into this career in the first place.

This takes me back to 1979 when I cut my programming teeth on a 6502 based machine that I first had to construct from a circuit board and a bag of components and then had to program with a hex keypad because I couldn't afford the full keyboard and assembler. A9 (LDA) is stuck in my head for evermore.

Born in 2004 :)

20 year olds looking at 6502? I was at Portland retro game expo and the talk on NES game development tools was packed with people of all ages.

I'm only slightly older than your IDA license, I was born April 2001. Always enjoyed vintage computers more than the modern machines.

@Dave's Garage born in March 2002 here, and watching this series and your other videos as well, loving it! :)

I was born in '03 and I love this stuff

Thank you for not putting publicity on the videos. Its refreshing

glad to be part of the task manager community (≧▽≦)

I use UltraEdit as my editor. Never used a disassembler as I am not a machine code dev.

Really interesting video... But while I am watching it I had to pause it and googling a few of things 😂

Dangit, was born July of 2001, just younger

Legitimately only a month older than your IDA license 😄

I think I am older than you Dave. I've done 6502, Z80 and 68000 Assembly and love this. Currently I am doing some Kintex-7 FPGA work. Low level has much zen going on. Not sure what I liked more in the early 80s; Exploring dungeons in D&D or exploring other people code using a disassember.

Not born after 2001, (Born July 20th 1998), but 6502 assembly is the only programming I can grasp and enjoy; I really don't like C++ or Javascript. Too hard for me, honestly.

I built myself a Z80 machine, and the first assembly I wrote for that was in its monitor. Counting bytes to work out addresses to jump to is one of those learning experiences everyone has to do, but the second they get hold of an assembler, they soon give up doing :) Also, compared to Z80, 6502 looks weird and strange and I don't like it ;-)

Bad Ass Game. I Had the Original Machine in My Bedroom. Lots Of High School Girls. Now My Daughter is 40 yrs old And im 55. SMH. Still my favorite game. The one on 2600 is trash.

I wonder if those “dead spots” are used for self modifying code or on the fly data generation. That’s what I did sometimes in the past. Have a label and some preamble code. And another ORG and that preamble code would be extended or overwritten on the fly, with situation dependent code. Very hacky and hard to debug, but saved writing boring routines that changed a few bytes for each situation, several times :)

well, you probably don't expect sb with a Windows XP pfp to have been born after Windows Vista's release(!), but I'm leaving a note in the comments lol

11:22 flash forward to Dave ageing three weeks.

I was born in 1969 and started self-learning programming in 8th grade. By high school I was programming machine language on a commodore Vic 20 followed by assembly on the Commodore 64.

Just found your channel today. What a great, fun and inspiring channel you have here. I’ve been learning assembly and found your video on making a small Windowed app in assembly. Please keep making content I am a subscriber as of right now.

Born in 2002 and, though I don't have any 'old' tech, I'm an absolute sucker for stuff based around it. I understand maybe the broadest stuff about Assembly, but I definitely wanna get better eventually. Someone is gonna have to maintain the stuff everything runs off of, after all. Can't directly interface with hardware with Python after all. (Well, maybe you can, but that's definitely not its purpose.)

6502 now I tought myself that with a friend way back in 1990 or there abouts. I had access to a bbc b microcomputer, and had an Electron, later a Vic 20, C16 (had a differant cpu, but was compatible) Just found you, great videos Dave.

I love all of your content, but this is by far my favorite series. It blows my mind what was able to be accomplished so long ago, before all of the best practices were written in stone / etc. Crazy talented folks

Having used IDAPro (from a previous employer who didn't use it anymore) to disassemble several 6502 games to port them to the BBC Micro, I am quite familiar with the missing three weeks. I haven't yet been brave enough to try to relocate them, so have stuck to games that can sit in RAM on the BBC Micro. I have some videos if you are curious!

Ohh my god, i still can read and understand 6502 assembler somewhat ...

your RGB's change the colour and tone of your face ever so slightly - if you stare hard enough it's kinda like an acid trip. not a complaint, just an observation :)

While never having played Tempest, but still growing up using an Atari 800XL, I feel like I should play it...

I'm two years late here but I was born in 2004. I love these videos and I can proudly say I'm fluent (not necessarily good) at 6502 assembly language.

Hi Dave. I have a tempest that is working at the moment but it does have a chip that has failed twice. I have two spare boards that I have robbed chips from. But now i have no spare for that specific chip if it fails again. Do you have a full chipset that you could sell me? Or at least do you have a library of all chips that you could burn the next one that fails on me. Randy.

I was born in 2003 I don't understand a lot of what you are doing I know the basics of c++, c# and python and I'd love to take the next steps probably opengl or something as I wish to be a game developer, also last but not least I want to say thank you for task manager it has helped me many times

I was born in June 2001, early June. So it depends when you got the license...

Thanks for the task manager man! Used it so many times to restar explorer.exe by hand!

That's cool I didn't know about Ghidra. Only used IDA pro around the same time you got your license. I'll have to give that a try next time I need to disassemble something.

Born 2002, I'm just really into rom hacking B-)

Hi Dave, great video. Quick question: I have an Atari 2600 running on a 6507 processor. How different is 6502 assembly from 6507 and would this same process for altering an Atari game?

Man, your license for IDA is older than me, christ.

i'm 1 year younger then Dave's IDA licencse

I would have watched a 6 hour video of just speed screen of the weeks of tweaks

3:14 I felt called out :) I was born in May 2002 and I am a Computer Science student right now. We did talk about Assembly a little bit and we made some programs in ARM Assembly (plus I became quite proficient with AVR Assembly bacause I needed to get some stuff working on a microcontroller that involved operating on single bits of memory into specific memory addresses) but that's it. As someone who loves coding in C/C++, Assembly to me feels like the next obvious step, because I have a chance to learn how those two languages physically work. Plus I think we must not forget it, as you once said "it's a lost art".

Another great video!

born in 06 and this stuff facinates me

I was actually born just a little bit earlier than your ida

Extremely lovely to watch, the presentation is very pleasant and well done :p

Sir teach us how to complie the XP source code

Born in 2003...nevertheless, very interesting video.

My second favorite Dave

I wish they thought this in school.

I was born after 2001

1990 I was working on a warehouse stepper motor guided vehicle 6800 RAM EPROM and an LCD display with a serial port to transfer instructions from a BBC computer. Fun bits 1/ all built with a wire wrap technique, all I had at the time and deadline. 2/ My first 6800 assembler I stupidly put some string text data in the address area for the "reset vector" I had to get help to find that problem (after he stopped laughing). 3/ Digital solutions - giving them a tiny push or tap to make them run is not successful strategy. 4/ Purchasing department save a few pennies by buying a different LCD panel compared to the data sheet I had (the substitute needed a +&- Vss - long story how I found out ) We learn more by making mistakes - I have learnt such a lot over the years - and I predict more learning ;-)) for me.

Thank you for your incredible videos and out of so many awesome stories you have told, seeing the world record holder master the game inside and out is truly something to behold. I have a great appreciation for your work at Microsoft and watching your videos and taking in your zeal for life and technology has been a great inspiration in my life, learning code and working in CSS.

I’m not after June of 2001 but I’m November 1995. Pretty sure you were probably writing task manager when I was born.

Can't beleive I've watched this many of your videos before realizing you've covered 65x assembly.

94' kid here 😅I know not before 2001 but still. Strange to call myself a professional programmer but I am now and have been for a long while. Programming is my first passion and I guess thats why I seek out esoteric programming things 🤓

I wrote a 6502 disassembler for BBC Micro. It was surprisingly easy with the addressing modes mapping onto instruction bits. It made me feel like I had some secret insight into how the CPU interpreted the machine code. Of course there days there is various 6502 rev eng references and projects on there.

Iam here born 2003

3:00 Not quite... I'm about a decade older. Atari's were still in use (albeit barely) when I was old enough to remember them. I didn't find out what they were called until much later though!

post-2001

Does June 1971 still apply? :)

Me

I am

09/2002

Great video. Thanks!

great vid!

That license is a month older than me damn...

Pretty cool, the only decompiler I've ever used was for Java! In college we had to do some MIPS assembly, but I never did much beyond that. It takes so long just to do small things I find it very frustrating. Always in awe of people like you that can understand what's going on just from opcodes. Looking forward to seeing the mods!

Liking this series, thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Born 2002. You asked.

3:12 I was born June 2000 xP