Skip to content

Standard Reader

Tag

Nes

Articles and publications tagged Nes across the Atmosphere.

45articles4publications

Articles

Publications

Norm Likes Games

Norm Likes GamesOct 14, 2026

I Finally Beat Dr. Chaos!

ewan's devlogOct 12, 2026

SMBC: attribute table and bumped-block address fixes

Pixel comparison against NES reference footage found three rendering bugs: palette RAM mirroring, an off-by-one in the attribute writer, and a missing Block_BBuf_Low store.

ewan's devlogOct 12, 2026

SMBC: NES APU synthesis and host audio output

Pulse, triangle and noise channels with envelope, length, sweep and the frame sequencer, mixed per NESdev and pushed to SDL through a lock-free ring.

ewan's devlogOct 12, 2026

SMBC: frontend controls and reference scenarios used the wrong button layout

input.c and the compare scenarios fed in-game SavedJoypadBits bitmaps to the serial joypad layer; every control was scrambled.

ewan's devlogOct 11, 2026

smbc: movement and offscreen layers

Ported the object movement primitives, the relative position and offscreen bits layer, and OffscreenBoundsCheck from smb.asm — the ground the enemy runners stand on.

ewan's devlogOct 11, 2026

smbc: frenzy generators

Ported InitEnemyFrenzy and its five generators from smb.asm — lakitu and spinys, flying cheep-cheeps, bowser's flame, fireworks, and bullet bills.

ewan's devlogOct 11, 2026

smbc: enemy init routines

Ported the InitEnemyRoutines jump table from smb.asm — every enemy initialiser from goombas to bowser, plus Setup_Vine and EndFrenzy.

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC reads level objects — ProcessAreaData and the decoder

The whole area object decoder in one atom — ProcessAreaData, DecodeAreaData, all forty-odd handlers, and the render tables behind them

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC grows levels — the area data and its resolver

All 68 object streams extracted and verified against the ROM, plus GetAreaDataAddrs

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC grows scenery — RenderSceneryTerrain and its tables

Background and foreground scenery, terrain render bits, and the block buffer store

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC draws metatiles — RenderAreaGraphics

The metatile column renderer with its attribute-bit rotations and name table wrap

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC plans its columns — the AreaParserTaskHandler task tree

The eight-task parser cycle, column position bookkeeping, and the attribute buffer flush

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC reads its cartridge — DrawTitleScreen and CHR reads

The PPU learns pattern-table reads from a nominated CHR, un-stubbing the title screen data copy

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC speaks — WriteGameText and the GameText blocks

The message writer with the lives crown, the LUIGI name patch and the warp zone numbers, un-stubbing three screen tasks

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's screen task tree runs

ScreenRoutines — the fourteen tasks behind mode task 1 — with the palette subroutines, status line writers and intermediate displays

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

All four SMBC modes now dispatch

The GameMode skeleton — task tree, GameCoreRoutine's joypad plumbing and the GameEngine's translatable tail — completes the mode execution tree's top level

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's VictoryMode is translated

The victory task tree with SetupVictoryMode, PrintVictoryMessages and PlayerEndWorld — three of the four modes now dispatch in C

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's TitleScreenMode is translated

GameMenuRoutine, DrawMushroomIcon and DemoEngine ported to C — the title screen menu with its world-select and demo paths

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's GameOverMode is translated

The game over task tree, TransposePlayers and the area pointer lookup ported to C — the first mode of the execution tree

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's sound engine is translated

SoundEngine, the SFX handlers and the music sequencer ported to C, with the music data verified byte-for-byte against the donor ROM

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC clears its name tables

InitializeNameTables ported and verified against the donor ROM, plus a proper issue tracker for everything left to translate

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC has its graphics data

The 8KB of CHR pattern tables, the one asset the disassembly omits, extracted from a donor ROM and embedded as C

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's VRAM buffer writer is translated

UpdateScreen and WriteBufferToScreen ported to C, with the PPU model gaining a flat VRAM image and the $2006/$2007 data path

ewan's devlogOct 10, 2026

SMBC's reset and NMI spine is translated

Boot sequence, interrupt handler, joypad serial read, pause, sprite shuffle and memory clear are ported to C, with tests against the disassembly's semantics