The "copper" is the graphics coprocessor. The "copper list" is the machine code executed by this processor. On the Atari 800 this was called the display list.
When you made a game for these systems, you wrote two programs in two different assembly languages: one for the CPU and one for the graphics processor.
The two chips would sort of run in parallel, interleaving their access to main memory. Programming them was a lot fun.
When you made a game for these systems, you wrote two programs in two different assembly languages: one for the CPU and one for the graphics processor.
The two chips would sort of run in parallel, interleaving their access to main memory. Programming them was a lot fun.