Comment by Tor3
3 hours ago
Seconded. I bought the first edition of "Programming the 6502" way back in the neolithic, and I enjoyed it greatly. I even read parts of it again now and then these days too, just because I like it. I used to write assembly on, at first, the AIM-65, and later the Apple II.
Is Programming the 6502 enough to learn Assembly on the Apple II ? But it doesn't explain the memory and screen management, right ? So how can we learn that ?
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the screen memory of the Commodore machines (ViC-20, Commodore 64) were the most straight-forward. As opposed to the more janky Apple II memory map.
You could do a lot worse than picking up a new Commodore 64 Ultimate [1]. They're a more or less faithful remake of the Commodore 64 but have an HDMI port, SD card instead of disk drive, etc. You could learn BASIC, should be able move to assembly as well—a quick search pulled up a YouTube course on 6502 assembly for the Commodore [2].
(I realize I am not contributing "books"—but others have done well in this regard. I did want to share what I think is a pragmatic way to learn 6502.)
[1] https://www.commodore.net
[2] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU1o_YShTPgoA7_nZ0PutqaPD...
For that you'll need Apple II documentation - though that's device-specific information. It's easy to find online, e.g. https://nicole.express/2024/phasing-in-and-out-of-existence...., but there's lots more with various levels of info. This one, for example: https://www.kreativekorp.com/miscpages/a2info/memorymap.shtm...
For actual 6502 programming you'll need a dedicated 6502 assembly programming book, for example the aforementioned Rodney Zaks books.
Is the Apple II Reference Manual good for that ? Or anything specific to the Apple II, like "What's Where in the Apple" or "Understanding the Apple II" ?