teaching
CPSC 86
Games Systems: Platforms, Programs & Power (S2026)
overview | logistics | schedule | edstem | assignments | resourcesTentative Schedule (changes frequently)
| week | date | topics | readings | pattern | work assigned |
| 1 PLATFORM STUDIES (listen ahead) |
9/20/2026 | course introduction | syllabus; RtB and 10P forewards | 10 PRINT | |
| 9/22/2026 | platform study: 10: PRINT | 10P 1–242; VIC20 and C64 emulators | |||
| 2 HACKING SYSTEMS "Programming as Forgetting" by Parrish |
1/26/2026 | hello TIC-80; 10 PRINT; snake | TIC-80 tutorials; Pippin Barr's snakisms; 1D Games | hello tic 80 | |
| 1/27/2026 | hacking; remaking; demaking | "Hacker" by Coleman; read about, download & play a demake of Halo; "Searching Internet Archive"; TIC-80 memory map and file format | REMAKE: reimagine an early game | ||
| 1/29/2026 | before atari: arcade & mainframe: Tennis for Two; Pong; Breakout; OXO; SpaceWar [src] | RtB 1–11; A Video Game by Any Other Name; Pixels in Print part 1 and part 2; "The Gender Binary of Computing: Challenging Sexism in Technology" by Zalkikar | component (keith) | HACK: modify an existing 2600 game | |
| 3 GAMES AT HOME "Jerry Lawson: The Engineer Who Changed the Game" |
2/2/2026 | collision detection | vectors & driving tutorials; map | TIC-80 mini-lab | |
| 2/3/2026 | combat [src] & video olympics | RtB 12–42; "Untold Story of the Game Cartridge"; Atari ch 2–5 | |||
| 2/4/2026 | mos 6502; hardware; adventure [src] | RtB Ch. 3; "Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic Manufacture"; Atari Ch. 6 | game loop (sglasha1; jwang8) | ||
| 4 ATARI 2600 "High Score 1" |
2/9/2026 | 6502 ASM & stella | 6502 tutorial; how to hack a rom (battlezone) tutorial; 10P 195–242; run it!; Atari Ch. 1 | stella/6502 | |
| 2/10/2026 | pac-man; sprites | RtB Ch. 4; Atari Ch. 7-9; distellamap | double buffer (pkampel1; jmartin7) | ||
| 2/12/2026 | yars revenge; asteroids; input | RtB Ch. 5; Atari Ch. 10-13 | update method (tabera1; oogunde1) | ||
| 5 ATARI 2600 II "High Score 2" |
2/16/2026 | HACK/REMAKE WORKSHOP | |||
| 2/17/2026 | pitfall [src]; procedural graphics; river raid [src] | RtB Ch. 6; Atari 155–164 | command (cguerre1; hharris2) | ||
| 2/19/2026 | SIGCSE | ||||
| 6 SIMULATION & EMULATION I "Atari Game Over" |
2/23/2026 | E.T.; bank switching | "Was E.T. Really the 'Worst Game Ever'?" & fixing E.T. Atari 195–201 | fixing E.T. | |
| 2/24/2026 | star wars; pressure cooker; sound | RtB Ch. 7; Atari 171–184 | state (jtinsle1; pdinh1) | ||
| 2/26/2026 | emulation; state; particles | scene management tutorial; "Use of a Game Over: Emulation and the Video"; RtB Ch. 8 | singleton (khikino1; mmangin1) | ||
| 7 HACK THE MAGIC CIRCLE "American Hysteria #Gamergate" |
3/2/2026 | REMAKE/HACK WORKSHOP | |||
| 3/3/2026 | entombed (mazes); wabbit; timers | "Pioneer Rediscovered: The Woman who Brought Female Representation to Games"; "Entombed: An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game"; timers | flyweight (jbooker1; kgabres1) | ||
| 3/5/2026 | REMAKE W_I_P POSTER | play-testing | |||
| 8 BREAK |
3/9/2026 | SPRING BREAK | |||
| 3/10/2026 | |||||
| 3/11/2026 | |||||
| 9 NES/FAMICOM I "Story Behind Super Mario Bros. 3" |
3/16/2026 | HACK/REMAKE | |||
| 3/17/2026 | nintendo; donkey kong | Error 1–79 | prototype () | ||
| 3/19/2026 | NES | Error 81–115; NES 55–62; signal | lazy initialization (moludar1; kvallej1) | DEMAKE: back-port a current game to the NES | |
| 10 NES/FAMICOM II Tetris Movie |
3/23/2026 | pattern & name table | NES 1–53; Super Mario Clouds & I Shot Andy Warhol; "NES Memory Visualization" and plots | 10 print NES remake | |
| 3/24/2026 | SMB [src]; scrolling | Error 116–162; NES 63–68; 75–82 | observer (iallah1; nargaw1) | ||
| 3/26/2026 | storage; vram buffers; zelda [src] | Error 163–196 | event queue () | ||
| 11 SOUND Reliving Nintendo Soundtracks with the Brickster |
3/30/2026 | sprites & sound | NES 83–116; sound tutorial | pong NES remake | |
| 3/31/2026 | controls | NES 69–84 | object pool (mleonar1; lmuro1) | ||
| 4/2/2026 | 2A03; mega man | Error 249–288; "The Women Who Invented Video Game Music"; | thread pool () | ||
| 12 EXPANSION archiving & game genie |
4/6/2026 | tetris; 6502 ASM reprised | tetris AI; NES 171-223; "34 years later, a 13-year-old hits the NES Tetris 'kill screen'" | tetris | |
| 4/7/2026 | mappers and interrupts | NES 147-167 | dirty flag () () | ||
| 4/9/2026 | emulation II; expansion | dragon quest; game genie; Error 197–248 | spatial partition (tli2; mtalukd1) | MAKE: create a new 8-bit game (2600/NES/TIC80) | |
| 13 SIMULATION & EMULATION II "The Turing Problem" |
4/13/2026 | climber | NES 117–146 | ||
| 4/14/2026 | randomizers; TAS | "How 'randomizers' are breathing new life into old games"; Error 289–324 | bytecode () | ||
| 4/16/2026 | simulation; civilization; simcity | "Modeling Indigenous Peoples: Unpacking Ideology in Sid Meier's Colonization"; "Model Metroplis"; "Recovering Nintendo's Lost Simcity for the NES" | service locator () | ||
| 14 NEW DIRECTIONS "Dr. Gladys West: The Mathematician Who Reshaped Our World" |
4/20/2026 | DEMAKE WORKSHOP | |||
| 4/21/2026 | DEMAKE W_I_P POSTER | play-testing | |||
| 4/24/2026 | slack | ||||
| 15 NEW DIRECTIONS "Dr. Gladys West: The Mathematician Who Reshaped Our World" |
4/27/2026 | MAKE WORKSHOP | |||
| 4/28/2026 | mobile; pokemon | "Mobile Frontiers" by Fickle; Error 325–331 | type object (acancam1; tkehind1) | ||
| 4/30/2026 | proto-VR | "Sega VR Revived"; "Unraveling The Enigma Of Nintendo's Virtual Boy"; "The Story of the Power Glove"; early presentations; course evals; mediator | data locality (keith) | ||
| 16 FINAL |
4/XY/2026 | FINAL MAKE PRESENTATIONS) | |||