Stell-A-Sketch/Okie Dokie

Stell-A-Sketch is a homebrew drawing program for the Atari 2600, written by Bob Colbert in 1997. It turns the console into a copy of the Etch A Sketch toy: you move a point around the screen and it leaves a line behind it. Colbert's label Retroware released it together with his puzzle game Okie Dokie, on cassette and on CD-ROM, which is where this page's double title comes from. The emulator here loads Stell-A-Sketch only. You can try it in your browser.

Play Atari 2600 Stell-A-Sketch/Okie Dokie online

  • ← ↑ ↓ → Joystick
  • Space Fire
  • F12 Reset
  • F11 Select
  • F4 / F9 Difficulty

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How to use Stell-A-Sketch online

On a real console, Stell-A-Sketch works with a joystick, with Atari driving controllers or with an Amiga or Atari ST mouse. The emulator only offers the joystick option.

  • Draw: arrow keys
  • Save and load a drawing: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it

About the program

Stell-A-Sketch was written for the Starpath Supercharger, an add-on from the early 1980s that loaded games from cassette tape and gave the 2600 far more memory. The program would not be possible without that extra memory, because the standard console has only 128 bytes of RAM.

It did not stay on sale. Ohio Art, the company behind the real Etch A Sketch, made Colbert stop selling it. The companion game, Okie Dokie, is a puzzle in which every square you select flips itself and its neighbours on or off, and the goal is to switch the whole board off. Colbert released Okie Dokie as freeware.

Similar programs to try next

  • Video Life – draw a pattern of dots and watch Conway’s Game of Life play out
  • Synthcart – a homebrew that turns the 2600 into a synthesizer
  • Phaser Patrol – the game that came with the Supercharger