Ask HN: Books to learn 6502 ASM and the Apple II

My running joke after showing off some amazing LLM-driven work is...

if you think this is impressive, I once opened a modal dialog on an Apple IIGS in 65C816 assembly

I don't think you need to learn BASIC, if you know concepts like conditionals and looping and indexing. It is interesting to compare the higher-level language of the time with its companion assembly. And you might find yourself writing BASIC programs to complement your assembly, if you stick to that platform.

<lore> A friend dropped me a BASIC program that ran and wrote text to the Apple IIGS border. He asked me to figure it out, because it wasn't obvious what was going on. OG hacker puzzle... it was a BASIC program that jumped to hidden assembly after the apparent end of the text file (hidden chars maybe, I forget) and the assembly was changing the border at appropriate rate to "draw" on it. Those were the days... trying to find some reference to this and am failing. </lore>

I certainly credit my stack-frame debugging capability to dealing with that stuff so long ago. Oddly enough, I didn't really find it helpful for computer architecture class. Just because you know registers exists and how to manipulate them, doesn't exactly map architecting modern hardware system. But being fluent in logic operations and bit-twiddling and indexing does help a lot.

They screen memory layout on the Apple II was a clever hardware hack but makes programming the machine more difficult. I think you'd be better off using a "trainer", like a KIM-1 simulator [0] to get your feet wet. (The KIM-1 was made by MOS Technologies, manufacturers of the 6502, as a demonstration and prototyping platform for the CPU.)

If you can do simple exercises on a machine like that and get comfortable with simple operations (loops, memory addressing modes) I think you'd have a better time grokking something more feature-filled.

[0] http://retro.hansotten.nl/6502-sbc/kim-1-manuals-and-softwar...

I recommend these two books for 6502 assembly:

https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-machine-language-for-...

and

https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-the-second-book-of-ma...

These two books will give you a good understanding of 6502 assembler - it is general but gives a good background and has a nice assembler with a full walk through of the code. I used these two books to learn 6502 on my Commodore 64 and they are highly recommended.

For Apple-II specific info, consider

The Assembly Lines book -- https://archive.org/details/AssemblyLinesCompleteWagner

Understanding the Apple IIe -- https://archive.org/details/understandingapp0000sath

Understanding the Apple II -- https://archive.org/details/understanding_the_apple_ii

This is the book I used when I was writing serial drivers for Apple II ProDOS: https://archive.org/details/6502_Assembly_Language_Programmi...

And I have a vague memory of this book: https://archive.org/details/aiimp/mode/2up

Not sure what level you're at, but I can't remember if this is the text Jef Raskin wrote, but it's a decent backgrounder: https://archive.org/details/aiirm/mode/2up

I believe one of the "standard works" to learn 6502 back in the day was Programming the 6502 by Rodnay Zaks. It's out of print, but it was printed in a lot of copies so you should be able to find one second-hand.

Next to a book on 6502 assembly, you can google "apple 2 original system manual" and download it. I contains ROM assembly source code and schematics.

No, you don't need to learn BASIC before assembly, but many books of the time went that route, e.g.,

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5011686-apple-machine...

Here is an interesting article on porting a BASIC game for the Apple II to GW BASIC:

https://nanochess.org/akalabeth.html

and it includes a link to the documented source code for Akalabeth (also known as Ultima 0)

Somewhere, there's an article discussing the assembly-language like bit-blitting used to draw the high-res graphics in a timely fashion and the variable/memory management techniques needed to drive that which I'm sure a bit of searching will turn up (or one can derive it from the source).

There is "Apple Machine Language for Beginners" by Richard Mansfield https://archive.org/details/Apple_Machine_Language_for_Begin...

I have fond memories from the late 1980s of trying to get the assembler contained within this book working, typing line after line of the MLX listing in. Unfortunately I never did finish it back then.

A week or so ago I got the urge to complete this project and I literally just finished getting the source in it to a point where it can be compiled online and then within an emulator: https://github.com/jlmcgraw/LADS_DOS33

Machine Language for Beginners, Charles Mansfield https://archive.org/details/ataribooks-machine-language-for-...

This book specifically targets beginners that are new to 6502 assembly. The examples cover all of the 1980s-era computers including the Apple II. It's free on archive.org and the introductory chapters are worth reading.

Learning BASIC isn't essential, but the thing is, you might as well just do it. It's not complicated, and you're not under any obligation to develop a big piece of software with it. Have fun!

I'm seconding the recommendation to look at Rodnay Zack's books. For example, I really enjoyed Advanced 6502 Programming. It's a project-based tutorial for a custom 6502 machine. The design and schematics are in the book.

https://archive.org/details/Advanced_6502_Programming/mode/2...

Pretty much the best resource available:

https://6502.org/

Check the books section and find something that compels you.

Also, don't forget the HUGE number of resources for 6502 assembly programming that are available in the https://archive.org/ magazine and book sections:

https://archive.org/search?query=6502

Rodney Zaks' books are great - I like especially "6502 Games", which taught me a lot back in the day:

https://archive.org/download/6502g/6502Games.pdf

I'm also especially fond of the easy6502 emulator - its a very handy tool to have while studying 6502 techniques:

https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/

Its not absolutely necessary to learn BASIC before Assembly, but it will definitely help you understand the resources of the machine better if you can debug BASIC ROM code. My personal 6502 platform of choice, the Oric-1/Atmos machines, has a pretty great ROM disassembly available, from which a lot of great knowledge can be obtained - but it does of course first require an undersanding of BASIC.

In case you're curious, the Oric-1 ROM Disassembly:

https://library.defence-force.org/books/content/oric_advance...

(You can get an Oric emulator named Oricutron, or you can access a virtual Oric here: https://oric.games/ ..)

Good luck!

The answer would depend on what programming experience you have? Do you have any assembly language experience ? with other targets? ie have you used an assembler ( and maybe linker ) before. Are you familiar with hex? bytes, bits etc , You will learn this and much more ...

Id look for a book that targets Assembly programming on a Apple 2, ie not a book on general 6502 programming.

   Such a book Id expect to discuss things like Apple 2 memory map , Apple 2 hardware and how they are used in assembler language. 

I googled phrase Apple 2 assembly language programming for beginners?

and lots of very good looking links popped up.

You aim is a challenging task. Much to learn. Good luck. However entirely do able these days.

My background is electronics engineer, embedded programing on in assembler (some Motorola processors and others) and C for a few years before moving on to other things ....

The book Assembly Lines: The Complete Book available as a FREE PDF download from .... site https://ct6502.org/product/assembly-lines-the-complete-book/

INCLUDES All 33 of Roger Wagner’s Assembly Lines articles from Softalk magazine, plus appendices, in one complete volume.

Two books for consideration.

Randy Hyde the creator of the Lisa assembler.

https://archive.org/details/A2_Hyde_6502_Asm_Lang/mode/1up

Ken Williams of Sierra OnLine fame.

https://vintageapple.org/apple_ii/pdf/Apple_II_Computer_Grap...

I remember looking at the way graphics work on the Apple II and it looked pretty crazy lol with how memory layout worked to generate pixels.

Have you considered using something like claude code / opencode?