Sorry, nevermind. Found it in one of the three tutorials I've been workig my way through:
http://bobrost.com/nes
Anyone having a similar problem can work their way through "assignment one" to get started.
Again, thanks for this great resource.

All of them do that because you don't point it to a file to start assembling. Loo up how to use the command prompt and pass variables and files to a program for it to use.

Nice tutorials! I just thought I should point out two issues that I have come across so far:

1. Week 1 contains the following sentences: "Base 2 binary works the same way, except each digit can be 0-1 and the place values are powers of 2 instead of 10. Insert a 0 to the right of a number and it becomes 2 times bigger. Remove a 0 and it becomes 10 times smaller." Shouldn't the last sentence say "2 times smaller"?
2. For week 4, my sprite seemed to use an improper coloring scheme even though I was doing everything the tutorial asked me to. thefox from #nesdev noticed that I "set the PPU address to $3F10, not $3F00 when loading the palette." Changing this fixed the colors, but the tutorial says to "write the low byte of $3F10 address." Is this a mistake?

10 is binary for what?  Playing off an old joke, "There are 10 types of people, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

I noticed the "joke" as well, I just don't think it was intentional. In any case, it's not really a good idea to put jokes like that on a tutorial.

I agree with thefox that this joke couldn't have been intentional. If it were, it'd use 10 instead of 2 in both sentences. I'm sure this would be quite confusing to newbies.

The zip file had it writing $00, which worked, whereas $10 did not. Either the tutorial is wrong or the attached file is.

I'm trying to dive into learning how to program for the NES. Hope it works out. At any rate, thanks to everyone who contributed to this, especially making it a sticky and keeping the threads organized.

Would it be worthwhile creating a tutorial on how to utilize user-defined functions and macros for NESASM3? I know that having had programming experience with modern languages it is helping me clean up my assembly code a lot, and would be beneficial to those who have similar backgrounds, as well as to those that have to sift through code to help debug (big thanks to KHAN and 3Gen for putting up with me prior to having these tools at my fingertips).

EDIT: I'd be glad to write one up to contribute for this section as well.

Sorry to bump this thread but, would it be possible to combine all the Nerdy Nights Tutorial into a single Word Document and have it posted for download somewhere? Any assistance would be gresatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Nesogger

Nothing is stopping you from opening up word, and copy/pasting the tutorials into there yourself. I think they're split up so that people can ask questions that pertain to each tutorial.

I've been following the Nerdy Nights-series long before I joined NA but I haven't been able to say thanks until now. Thank you bunnyboy for these brilliant tutorials! They are really informative.

Hello everyone, new guy Bothi here. Just wondering if there was a language I should know before starting this tutorial? It seems more of a guide on how to modify something existing to run on the NES. Thanks in advance.

6502 assembly would be good to know, yes.

Although the tuts do show you how to view the sprites using emulators and the tut is using the sprites for SMB it is indeed teaching you code. The Language is 6502 Assembly. you write all the code in notepad (or notepad++ as most prefer) and then use a compiler to assemble the code. Just stick with the tutorials and feel free to ask questions as you go along. I'm still going through them as well but things are slowly making more sense the more i plug away at them.

Thanks, JC. I saw the 6502 while skimming, but, being unfamiliar with it, did not immediately recognize it as the language. I do have Np++, thanks again.

-B

No problem man. Assembly isn't and upper level language like C++ or Java. It's essentially machine code and because of that it tends to turn people off as it requires a better understanding of core computing concepts. Just keep plugging away at it and again don't feel bad if you have to ask a question. Often times everyone will point you to a solution or means thereof rather than giving you simply the code needed to solve the problem as it helps you learn why something works rather than just that it does. It can be frustrating but ultimately more helpful.

Hello again everyone, I am working my way through NN week 3, and noticed that it he inserts his Mario sprite as ".incbin 'mario.chr'". Could anyone tell me what the .chr filetype is, and if I should use it?

I'm not sure exactly what .incbin is but in my head it means "include binary" and the mario.chr is a file that has all of the mario sprites and images in it. If you downloaded the attachment it should have come with the mario.chr that bunnyboy separated from the SMB ROM to use for the tutorials. It's important that you have it otherwise none of your graphics will show up.

---edit for more info----

i should state the the mario.chr has ALL of the graphics from SMB, background, enimies, blocks, etc...

I got the .incbin, was just wondering whether or not your graphics had to be in (this alien) .chr format. Thank you.

.chr is just the default name for most. I use .bin for graphics myself, for pretty much everything. Those 3 extra letters as the extension don't matter honestly, as long as the binary data is in the NES graphics format, it's good to go.

Hey. Joined the forum specifically to say that this resource KICKS ASS. I haven't programmed anything in 10+ years and got me up to speed and thinking with code again in no time flat.

Question though, does anyone recommend a specific code text editor? I'm using Notepad to edit code at the moment, and while functional its still Notepad.

Thanks!

I use notepad++, it's great.
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/...

yeah go with NP++ , it has all kinds of code resources and plug-in availible for it. someone even did a  Assebly 6502 plug-in (i don't use it but it exists) for the most part i just use the line counting feature so when the compiler throughs an error on a line of code I can quickly navigate to that line.

Sweet. Anyone got a link to that Assembly Plug-In? That would sure be handy.

Quick question, and this will probably be obvious. What can I use to open and edit .chr files? Any image editor?