This is going to be a series of weekly NES programming lessons, starting from absolutely no knowledge. Right now the plan is 16-20 lessons ending with a complete game like pong or breakout. The first lessons may be easy but they will get harder! People who have done any type of programming before may have an easier time but anyone should be able to make it through. All the tools will be Windows based, so Linux users will have to use wine and MacOS users will have to use Parallels, Boot Camp, or VirtualPC.

Many things will simply not be covered in this series. No audio or scrolling will be done. Only the NROM mapper will be used. After you make it through all the lessons those will be much more simple than when you are first learning.

And finally these will not be without errors to begin with and may not be the absolute best way to do anything. People develop their own programming styles and this is just mine, which tends to be quickly written and not super efficient.

This is a really great idea -- it goes back to the "teach a man to fish" saying, and even if only one person learns enough to create a new game, then it was well worth it for the entire community.

This should be awesome for the community bunnyboy

Wow, I am so glad you are doing this. I glanced briefly over lesson 1, which seems like pretty easy stuff I already know. I'll read over it thoroughly when I get home later today (and ask any questions I may have).

I am super excited about all this even though I have my doubts of how fair I will make it into the lessons, esp since I will be start work soon and won't have as much free time again. Good luck to all on this, and I really hope everyone gives it a chance.
~~NGD

Great idea..

Thank you for taking the time out to do this..

Seems like a really good ideam. Im trying to learn C# right now so this could help me out.

Where was lesson 1 posted?

http://www.nintendoage.com/for...did=4147&enterthread=y

Hey, has someone been reading my SMS tutorial? This runs almost the same as it... Awesome idea though. Very well written, but I'm not sure I'd call this a good tutorial for people with no knowledge. If that's the case, you REALLY need to explain everything. It might be best to explain what the accumulator does before you introduce assembly, like explain this very basic so people can understand easier. Like have a WHOLE section explaining the MPU system piece by piece. But seriously, very awesome man, a good reference. Would be nice to put it on the main site in some way.   Also, I just skimmed some stuff real quick, but you mentioned negative numbers and I didn't see any indication that you explained signed binary or complements in there.  I may have missed it though, and I guess it isn't really important.

By the way, buns, if you want to put this on the main site, I'd be happy to help write it and put it together.

I hope I'm not just too silly, but which assembler is used in this tut? heard of nesasm, would that be good?

it uses nesasm

This is going to be awesome! Thanks bunnyboy and everyone else that's helped with this! Cheers! 

I'm not sure I'd call this a good tutorial for people with no knowledge. If that's the case, you REALLY need to explain everything. It might be best to explain what the accumulator does before you introduce assembly, like explain this very basic so people can understand easier.

Go read the actual tutorials, his are fine.