Finding Atari Addresses
As an owner of an Atari Assembler Editor cartridge, I'm still having trouble locating the hexadecimal address locations for BASIC commands. Any suggestions?
Eric Ermert
It is possible to call some of the ready-made routines found in the BASIC cartridge, but you must remember that they are designed to be used by BASIC itself, not external ML programs you write. You can read about the internal workings of Atari BASIC in COMPUTE!'s new Atari BASIC Sourcebook.
A better solution is to write your own routines. It isn't that difficult. For example, the SOUND command stores the values in the POKEY chip, which, among other things, is responsible for generating sound (see "Atari Sound System," COMPUTE!, January 1983). You can call any of the graphics routines BASIC uses (PLOT, DRAWTO, GRAPHICS). These are found in the Atari operating system, not the BASIC cartridge, and they are well-documented and designed to be called by your ML programs. Some references are De Re Atari, Atari Technical Notes, and Pill Wilkinson's COMPUTE! column "Insight: Atari" (especially February 1982).