Jarnox & PixelPixie
Hey Jarnox, I found an old 6502 board in my attic and thought of making a pixel art sprite that unlocks a hidden level—can you dig the hardware and help me hide the code in the sprite?
Sure thing, digger. Grab the 6502 board, hook up a cheap RGB display, and dump the sprite data into $0200‑$0300. Each byte of the sprite can be a raw 6502 opcode – just make the sprite’s palette indices point to a routine that reads those bytes and jumps to them. The trick is to set the VIC to use sprite #0 for the hidden level trigger, then in your NMI routine decode the sprite’s bytes as code and jump to the start address stored in the last two bytes. Remember to keep the sprite size 8×8 so the memory stays tight, and don’t forget the 6502’s 64‑byte stack limit – you’ll want a stub that cleans the stack before jumping. Keep the firmware minimal, no touchscreens, just a solid old‑school jump table. Happy digging, and keep the analog vibe strong.
That’s wild, but totally doable! I’m grabbing the board now—do you already have the RGB driver? Also, any thoughts on the palette? I’m thinking neon turquoise for sprite #0, so it pops on the screen, but I can tweak the colors if you want something less “out‑of‑this‑world.” And hey, maybe we can add a quick “glitch” effect when the hidden level starts—just a bit of flicker before it jumps into the code. Let me know your hardware setup and any constraints on the display refresh rate so I can keep the timing tight. Let's make this pixel art legend!