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Tutorial Stella

This document provides a tutorial on using the debugger in Stella, an Atari 2600 emulator. It discusses the main components of the debugger, including displaying CPU registers and memory. It then walks through a example of hacking the game Pac-Man to give the player infinite lives. First, it shows how to locate where lives are stored in memory and change the value. Then it discusses approaches for finding and modifying the code that handles losing a life so the player never loses one.

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CaioGomes
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© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
100 views

Tutorial Stella

This document provides a tutorial on using the debugger in Stella, an Atari 2600 emulator. It discusses the main components of the debugger, including displaying CPU registers and memory. It then walks through a example of hacking the game Pac-Man to give the player infinite lives. First, it shows how to locate where lives are stored in memory and change the value. Then it discusses approaches for finding and modifying the code that handles losing a life so the player never loses one.

Uploaded by

CaioGomes
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CPSC 599.

82 Retrogames (Winter/2014)

Tutorial on Stella
Atari 2600
Emulator
Daniel de Castro

February 1, 2014
Meet the console
Meet the emulator

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Meet the Debugger

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Meet the Debugger: Prompt area

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Meet the Debugger: TIA (Display, Info and Zoom)

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Meet the Debugger: CPU Registers

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Meet the Debugger: RAM

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Meet the Debugger: Disassembly

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Before we continue...

A hint/suggestion for some laptop users

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Let's hack Pac Man

Goal: Get infinite lives


First step: Locate lives in memory
Sub tasks: Search memory location, add more
lives to confirm it, document it.
Second: Never lose a life again
Sub tasks: Locate the relevant code, change it,
test it, save it.

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Where are my lives?

Manual method
Look at the RAM (128 bytes, it's not too hard)
More difficult if you had extra memory

Dynamic method
Search for value
Force the value to change (Kill Pac Man)
Compare
Unfortunately, it seems to be buggy! :(

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Adding documentation

define labels
Pro: Updates the disassembled code
Con: It's not persistent
Making notes
Use your favorite text editor
Simple and persistent solution
Special file: <game name>.sym,
Where <game name> is given by Stella
Works as labels
Reload using loadsym (removed in 3.9.1)

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Hacking the code

Need to identify the code before performing any


changes

Manual approach
Save the disassembled code: savedis
Stella 3.9.3 for Windows requires that the file already exists(!?)
Search for it

Dynamic approach
Let the Debugger find it for you
(Breakpoints, Watchpoints and Traps)

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Stopping the code

Breakpoints
Stops when PC gets there (break)
Conditional: Stops when something happens
(breakif)
Watches
Evaluate and prints expression before prompt
(watch)
Trap
Stops when a memory is read (trapread), written
(trapwrite) or accessed (trap)

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Breakpoint/Trap Status

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Let's hack it!

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Summary

Overview of the Debugger


Configuration (optional)
Change memory (RAM and ROM)
Some useful commands:
define, loadsym (note: loadsym was removed from 3.9.1 and newer)
frame, scanline, trace, step
break, breakif, watch, trapread, trapwrite, trap
savedis, saverom
References:
http://stella.sourceforge.net/docs/debugger.html
http://www.atariarchives.org/alp/ (6502 Assembly language)

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Appendix A Some Assembly instructions

Inst Description Inst Description


NOP No operation SEC Set the carry bit
STA Store A to memory SBC Subtract with carry
STX Store X to memory CLC Clear the carry bit
STY Store Y to memory ADC Add with carry
LDA Load memory to A CMP Compare memory and A
LDX Load memory to X CPX Compare memory and X
LDY Load memory to Y CPY Compare memory and Y
INC Add memory EOR Exclusive OR with A
DEC Decrement memory BCC Branch when carry is clear
JMP Jump to address BCS Branch when carry is set
JSR Jump to subroutine BEQ Branch when zero bit is set
RTS Return from subroutine BNE Branch when zero is clear

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