Atari 2600 Source Code As Art

Ben Fry — one of those rare breeds of soul whose cerebral left-hemisphere is as dominated by programming as his right is by art — does some interesting art that is a fusion of the two: a series of illustrations based upon the source code of classic Atari 2600 games!

Like any other game console, Atari 2600 cartridges contained executable code also commingled with data. This lists the code as columns of assembly language. Most of it is math or conditional statements (if x is true, go to y), so each time there's "go to" a curve is drawn from that point to its destination.

When a byte of data (as opposed to code) is found in the cartridge, it is shown as an orange row: a solid block for a "1" or a dot for a "0". The row is eight elements long, representing a whole byte. This usually means that the images can be seen in their entirety when a series of bytes are shown as rows. The images were often stored upside-down as a programming method.

The image above is a small section of Pac-Man. There's something vaguely calligraphic about it, like a scroll of Islamic script written by techno-futurists and illustrating the secret name of God.

Atari 2600 Source Code Art [Ben Fry]