https://github.com/blendsdk/racing-the-beam

🕹️ Racing the Beam — Learn Atari 2600 assembly programming from scratch. 72 hands-on lessons from zero to homebrew mastery.
https://github.com/blendsdk/racing-the-beam

6502 assembly atari-2600 game-development homebrew retro-gaming tutorial

Last synced: about 6 hours ago
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🕹️ Racing the Beam — Learn Atari 2600 assembly programming from scratch. 72 hands-on lessons from zero to homebrew mastery.

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/blendsdk/racing-the-beam
• Owner: blendsdk
• Created: 2026-05-26T23:26:27.000Z (28 days ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2026-06-07T22:13:33.000Z (16 days ago)
• Last Synced: 2026-06-08T00:14:30.432Z (16 days ago)
• Topics: 6502, assembly, atari-2600, game-development, homebrew, retro-gaming, tutorial
• Language: Assembly
• Homepage: https://blendsdk.github.io/racing-the-beam/
• Size: 548 KB
• Stars: 3
• Watchers: 0
• Forks: 0
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md

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README

          
# 🕹️ Racing the Beam

**Learn Atari 2600 assembly programming from scratch — 72 hands-on lessons from zero to homebrew mastery.**

🌐 **Live Site**: [blendsdk.github.io/racing-the-beam](https://blendsdk.github.io/racing-the-beam/)

## What is this?

A step-by-step masterclass in Atari 2600 game development using 6502 assembly language. Every lesson includes buildable source code that runs in the Stella emulator.

## The Curriculum

| Part | Topic | Lessons |

|------|-------|---------|

| 0 | Foundations | 01–03 |

| 1 | The 6502 CPU | 04–11 |

| 2 | TV & TIA | 12–18 |

| 3 | Playfield | 19–24 |

| 4 | Sprites | 25–34 |

| 5 | Sound | 35–37 |

| 6 | Game Development | 38–47 |

| 7 | Kernel Mastery | 48–55 |

| 8 | Advanced Topics | 56–65 |

| 9 | The DSL Path | 66–68 |

| 10 | Capstone Projects | 69–72 |

## Prerequisites

- **DASM assembler** — [github.com/dasm-assembler/dasm](https://github.com/dasm-assembler/dasm)

- **Stella emulator** — [stella-emu.github.io](https://stella-emu.github.io/)

- A text editor with 6502 assembly syntax highlighting

## Quick Start

```bash

git clone https://github.com/blendsdk/racing-the-beam.git

cd racing-the-beam

npm install

make            # Build the starter project

stella build/main.bin  # Run in Stella

```

## Development

```bash

npm run docs:dev      # Start VitePress dev server

npm run docs:build    # Build for production

npm run docs:preview  # Preview production build

```

## License

MIT