Archive-name: 8bit-emulation-faq Posting-Frequency: twice a month (monthly to news.answers) Version: 3.1 CBM EMULATION FAQ - (Version 3.1, 4 January 1996) ================= This FAQ is usually posted twice a month on the 4th and 19th to comp.emulators.cbm. Since comp.emulators.cbm was set up to remove the emulator discussion from comp.sys.cbm, this FAQ will not be posted there. Lines preceeded by a '+' have been added or modified since the last version was posted. The FAQ is in four parts due to its size. Part 1 is general information and a list of available emulators. Part 2 is questions and answers. Part 3 is mostly data. Part 4 is basically reviews of various emulators. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PART 1 - Table of Contents. --------------------------- 1. Introduction 1.1 What's new this time.. 2. What emulators are available? 2.1 C64 Emulator List 2.1.1 C64 Emulators for the Amiga 2.1.2 C64 Emulators for the PC 2.1.3 C64 Emulators for the Atari 2.1.4 C64 Emulators for the Macintosh 2.1.5 C64 Emulators for Unix 2.2 VIC20 Emulators 2.3 C128 Emulators 2.4 PET Emulators 2.5 SID Emulators 2.7 Other utilities & files 2.7.1 Utilities 2.7.2 Data files (Part 2). --------- 3. Questions & Answers 3.1 General 3.2 C64S 3.3 PC64 3.4 Other emulator specific questions (Part 3). --------- 3.5 How-to... (moved from Appendix B) 1. Running multi-disk games with C64S 1.0c 2. Using VIC-EMU 3. Getting certain games to work 4. Converting between different file formats. 4. A list of ftp sites where emulation programs can be obtained 4.0.1 Site Maintainers 4.0.2 Site IP addresses 4.0.3 Site info 4.0.4 WWW info 4.1 Locations of C64 Emulators 4.2 VIC20 Emulators 4.3 C128 Emulators 4.4 PET Emulators 4.5 SID Emulators 4.6 Non-Emulators 4.7 Other utilities & files 4.7.1 Utilities 4.7.2 Data files 5. Emulator File Formats 5.1 C64 Emulators standard files - overview 5.2 Table of supported file formats 5.3 Standard data files - internal formats 5.4 Converting between file formats 6. How to extract the Rom images required by the emulators 6.1 C64 roms - Basic, Kernal & Charset 6.2 1541 rom 7. Other information 7.1 Newsgroups worth reading 7.2 Emulator benchmarks 7.3 Emulator detection 7.4 Other sources of information (Part 4). --------- 8. Credits 9. Data Appendices: A. Reviews of emulators B. Advertisements --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Introduction --------------- Welcome to the CBM emulation faq! These files cover any program that emulates the features of any of the 8-bit Commodore machines that took the civilized world by storm in the 1980's and still have a huge follow- ing today. The C16, C64, C128, VIC, and PET are all covered. This file also covers most of the Frequently Asked Questions that crop up on this FAQ's birthplace and newsgroup, comp.emulators.cbm. Important Note: =============== There is no such thing as an Amiga emulator for the PC, and it's unlikely you'll find one that runs at any runnable speed for the PC for awhile yet. This FAQ is concerned with emulation of the CBM 8-bit machines only at the moment. This FAQ is maintained by Ken Gifford (kgifford@netaxs.com). You will always be able to get it from these ftp-sites: ftp.funet.fi : /pub/cbm/faq frodo.hiof.no : /pub/c64/faq ccnga.uwaterloo.ca : /pub/cbm/comp.sys.cbm and at any news.answers site. Also available via the C=Hacking mailserver.. simply send a message to "duck@pembvax1.pembroke.edu" with a subject line of "MAILSERV" and then with "send emulation.faq" in the body of the mail message. You can also obtain the FAQ via world wide web. Use the URLs: http://http.ecn.bgu.edu/users/xavf/cbm.emu.faq.toc.html http://www.hut.fi/~msmakela/faq/ The HTML version of the FAQ is maintained by Adrian Forte (gforte@bgu.edu) He would like any Commodore related GIFs to enhance the FAQ. A copy of the last posted FAQ is also available from the previous author's machine. Simply send a message to "c65list-request@dce.vic.gov.au" with a subject of "send latest/cec.faq1 latest/cec.faq2 latest/cec.faq3 latest/cec.faq4". 1.1 What's new this time Another re-edit..! Thanks should go out to Paul David Doherty for sending me a fair amount of errors that were in the last version, as well as a few additions. -tsr 2. What emulators are available? -------------------------------- The list of emulators is as comprehensive as possible, with some brief decriptions of what is emulated, and although something may be emulated it may not be 100% compatible with the original. More detailed "reviews", including author's notes, of some of the emulators may be found in the second part of this FAQ. 2.1 C64 Emulators. 2.1.1 C64 Emulators for the Amiga. PROGRAM: The A64 Package VERSION: 2.0 shareware, 3.01d demo, 3.?? commercial. FILE: TheA64Package.lha MACHINE: Commodore Amiga AUTHOR: Cliff Dugan, Christopher P. Zura & Douglas Decicco COMMERCIAL CONTACT: QuesTronix P.O. Box 340265 Hartford, CT 06134-0265 U.S.A. Phone: (203)296-6037 (voice and fax) DETAILS: Sid: Yes (no filter). Vic: Yes. 6510: Yes, with Undocumented opcodes. Peripherals: 1541 & printer via hardware interface with registered version. Other: Different character sets available instead of default. COMMENTS: The emulator is pretty fast and includes: Monitor, support for Amiga drives (HD, Ram disk, floppys, etc), expansion Ram. Demo on aminet in misc/emu/TheA64Package.lha restricted to 10 minutes. PROGRAM: Go-64! FILE: unknown MACHINE: Commodore Amiga AUTHOR: Chris Zura & Cliff Dugan DETAILS: Unknown. COMMENTS: A precursor to A64. PROGRAM: AXF-64 VERSION: Alpha 16 FILE: AXF-64.a16.lha MACHINE: Commodore Amiga, 68020 or higher. AUTHOR: Borge Nost (borgen@hstud2.cs.uit.no) COMMENT: You need the Kernal, Basic, and Font rom files from a real C= 64 to use this! No sound, no multicolor mode, no bitmap mode. Sorry, this is an alpha version that I decided to release because I might not be able to finish my project in a long time. You can try the included 'bars2' file to see the emulator working: LOAD"BARS2",8,1 SYS49152 PROGRAM : Frodo VERSION : 1.5 FILE : FrodoV1_5.lha MACHINE : Amiga AUTHOR : Christian Bauer REQUIRES: 68020+, AmigaOS 2.1+, C64 ROMs, graphics card recommended STATUS : Freeware, source included DETAILS : SID: Yes, with 6581sid.library or the real SID hardware (both not included) VIC: Line-based emulation, sprites, collisions, priorities, all screen modes, DMA cycles, raster effects, open top/ bottom borders 6510: All undocumented opcodes Keyboard: American and german mapping Joysticks: 1 or 2 digital joysticks, keyboard emulation Peripherals: Hard disk emulation on Amiga file system, IEC bus on parallel port (requires additional hardware) for connecting real CBM drives and printers, no fastloader support, no .d64 support COMMENT : This emulator focuses on the exact reproduction of special graphical effects possible on the 64, and is therefore not very fast (using a 68040/25 and a Piccolo card gives about half of the original C64 speed). However, using a line-based VIC model, it is capable of running most games and demos correctly, even those with FLI, FLD, DYCP, open top/bottom borders, multiplexed sprites etc. (but not AFLI and other effects depending on exact VIC/6510 synchronization). CyberGraphX, EGS, Picasso and Merlin graphics cards are supported for faster display. Using Amiga modes is possible, but slower. Some small demo programs and the full source code in assembler are included in the archive. 2.1.2 C64 Emulators for the PC. PROGRAM: c64.zip FILE: c64.zip MACHINE: IBM PC running DOS AUTHOR: Johannes Kiehl (hannes%complx.stgt.sub.org@ira.uka.de) REQUIRES: Hercules graphics card. DETAILS: Sid: No. Vic: Text mode only. 6510: No, Interpreted Basic commands only. Peripherals: 1541. COMMENTS: Very primitive. Documentation in German, although a partial English translation exists. PROGRAM: c64s (C64 Software Emulator) VERSION: 2.0 commercial, 1.1b shareware FILE: C64S11BD.ZIP & c64s20ru.exe MACHINE: IBM PC running DOS AUTHOR: Miha Peternel miha@hermes.si miha.peternel@bbs.abm.si (formerly ...@abm.gn.apc.org) miha@ferlin.fer.uni-lj.si dominikl@luz.fer.uni-lj.si (use this one when all of the above fail) COMMERCIAL CONTACT: For sales and support in North America, contact Seattle Lab: Seattle Lab 214 First St. Kirkland, WA 98033 U.S.A. Phone: 206.828.9001 Fax: 206.828.9011 Email: lab@seattle.wa.as.com CompuServe: 71202,560 FTP: ftp.seattlelab.com (204.250.45.1) WWW: http://www.seattlelab.com/c64s.htm (not .html) REQUIRES: 386 or better, VGA, and about 500k low RAM free. DETAILS: Sid: Yes - To pc speaker, Sound Blaster, GUS, Covox, and Pro Audio Spectrum. No filters. Vic: Sprites, All screen modes, raster effects. 6510: Yes, with Undocumented opcodes. Peripherals: Tape, 1541 & joystick emulation. Commercial release supports analogue joysticks. COMMENTS: 100% in assembler. Commercial release contains several utilities to help read real C64 tapes and disks. New in v2.0: - .ini files are used for configuration - Menu-driven, more user-friendly config utility - Can use a PC mouse to emulate a 1351 mouse in port 2 - improvments in SID emulation on all cards - better sprite handling (games such as Turrican 2 that use multiplexers now show the whole sprite instead of parts - 100% exact 1541 emulation mode, handles most known fast- loaders and copy protections. Special mode for GEOS. PROGRAM: C64 Alive VERSION: 1.0 (alpha test) FILE: c64alv10.zip MACHINE: IBM PC AUTHOR: Frank Littmann (littmann@worms.fh-rpl.de) REQUIRES: 386, 256k memory + 2560k XMS and VGA. 486/33+ recommended. DETAILS: Sid: Yes - To Adlib or Soundblaster. Vic: Sprites, full raster & sprite collision 6510: Yes, with Undocumented opcodes. Peripherals: Joystick, Printer, Disk2Dos drive, Reu ram expansion supported. Other: Machine code monitor. COMMENTS: 100% in assembler. Get from ftp.uni-kl.de /pub/pc/dos/misc Option of "regular" or "slow" (320x200) mode for previously not working machines. PROGRAM: Personal C64 (PC64) + VERSION: 1.18 + FILES: pc64d118.zip (German) or pc64e118.zip (English) OLD FILES: c64.zip, c64neu.zip, mc64.zip, pc64.zip, pc64sh.zip MACHINE: IBM PC/AT 386 (486DX2-66 recommended), DOS 3.3 or higher, Linux 1.1.62/63 with dosemu 0.53.pl32 can all be used AUTHOR: Wolfgang Lorenz (CIS 100112,220 = 100112.220@compuserve.com) CONTACT: To register in America, send $30 in cash, check, or M.O. to: Ted Drude Pre-built cables and printed-out 103 Belle Circle copies of the manual are available at Madison, AL 35758 extra charges. Add $4 for COD delivery. (teddrude@delphi.com) REQUIRES: VGA in mode 13h (VLB or PCI recommended), 500 Kbyte low RAM free, 486dx2/66 recommended for 100% speed at 50 fps DETAILS: SID: Voices 1-3 to Adlib, digitized samples to Soundblaster DSP. No filters, no syncs. VIC: Sprites, collisions, all screen modes, raster effects, optionally DMA. No open borders, no light pen. CIA: Ports and directions A and B, reversed keyboard matrix, timers A and B, cascaded timers, TOD with alarm, userport mapping to external program. No SDR, no timer-to-port connection, no IEC connection. 6510: Decimal mode, all undocumented opcodes, partial $00/$01 emulation. No tape connection. Keyboard: National keyboard driver or original C64 mapping. Joysticks: IBM analog, C64 digital (on PC64 cable) or keyboard emulation (white arrows and right Ctrl). Peripherals: Harddisk emulation via PC filesystem (PC64 files, *.P00), 1541 emulation via disk images (*.D64), any CBM drive connected to an external C64, printer to DOS file or device with CBM->ASCII translation. No tapes. COMMENTS: Built-in file manager. Multiple virtual C64s in different windows. Trace function with commented port access. Multiple system ROMs and modules. + 1.18 is the final DOS version; all subsequent work will be on + PC64 for Windows (see below). PROGRAM: PC64 2.0 for Windows VERSION: 2.0 FILE: pc64w200.zip MACHINE: IBM PC AUTHOR: Wolfgang Lorenz CONTACT: (see above) REQUIRES: PC running Windows 95, Windows NT with WinG installed, or Windows 3.1 with both WinG and Win32s (Windows 32-bit exten- sions) v1.25 installed. DETAILS: Still in beta; only about 20% of games run (according to the documentation). Still in a somewhat early state. PROGRAM: Win64 VERSION: Beta version 2 FILE: win64b02.zip MACHINE: IBM PC AUTHOR: Ralph Mason (ralph.mason@liffe.com) CONTACT: Official web page at http://www.gold.net/users/ez11/ + REQUIRES: PC running Windows 95 or NT only. DETAILS: Sid: None. 6510: 99% emulated. Uses .t64 and .d64 files. 2.1.3 C64 Emulators for the Atari. PROGRAM: c64.tos VERSION: 3.0 FILE: c64.lzh / c64.lha MACHINE: Atari ST AUTHOR: Uwe Seimet DETAILS: Sid: No. Vic: No, just text mode with screen at $0400 6510: Yes. Peripherals: EPSON printer, disk drive (limited 1541 emulation)/ COMMENTS: Very rough emulation. No banking, no shadow I/O. The documentation is in German only. Assembly source included. 2.1.4 C64 Emulators for the Macintosh. PROGRAM: Mac 64 VERSION: 4 FILE: mac64-04.hqx OLD FILES: mac64sea.hqx, mac64col.hqx, mac64-02.hqx, mac64-03.hqx MACHINE: Apple Macintosh AUTHOR: Earle F. Philhower III (st916w9r@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu) DETAILS: Sid: No. Vic: Hi-res gfx, sprites, scrolling. 6510: Yes. Peripherals: 1541 emulation, hard drive & printer, tape images. COMMENTS: Source code included. Work has stopped on the emulator; however, there are at least two other Macintosh C64 emulators in the works by others. 2.1.5 C64 Emulators for Unix. PROGRAM: x64 + VERSION: 0.3.1, 0.4 (alpha version) + FILES: x64-0.3.1.tar.gz OLD FILES: x64-0.1.tar.gz, x64-0.2.{0,1,2}.tar.gz MACHINE: Unix with X windows Soon to be available for PCs running DOS. AUTHORS: Jarkko Sonninen (sonninen@lut.fi) Jouko Valta (jopi@stekt.oulu.fi) Teemu Rantanen (tvr@cs.hut.fi) and many others. DETAILS: Sid: No. Vic: Mono Sprites, All screen modes except multi-colour. 6510: Yes, with Undocumented opcodes. Peripherals: 1541 emulation with disk images. Access to filesystem via drive 9. Joystick #1 to cursor keys. Reu ram expansion supported. ROM modules supported too. Other: Basic lister/cruncher program. Machine code monitor & runtime trace. Kernal rom patcher vers 0, 3, 67, 100. Option to copy T64 tape images into x64 disk images. Separate x64 Disk Manager program. Linux joystick support. (Cursor-key stick removed.) C128 emulator included. COMMENTS: ANSI C source code included. 65xx/8502 CPU documentation included. Uses Xt and Xaw libraries. Has different xdebugger and arg-parser modules for portability. ROMs not included! See the dox for details in extracting them. Offical World wide web site for x64 at: http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jopi/x64.html 2.2 VIC20 Emulators. PROGRAM: vic-emu FILE: vic-emu.lha (programs are vic-00 and vic-20) MACHINE: Commodore Amiga AUTHOR: Pieter van Leuven (etmpile@crosby.ericsson.se) DETAILS: 6502: Yes. Ram expansions: COMMENTS: vic-00 is for 68000s and vic-20 for 68020/30/40s. PROGRAM vic-emulator FILE: vic-emulatorC64.lnx MACHINE: Commodore 64 AUTHOR: Fausto Ibarra DETAILS: Ram expansions: 3k, 8k, 16k & 24k. COMMENTS: Screen size not emulated. 2.3 C128 Emulators. PROGRAM: x128 + VERSION: 0.3.1, 0.4.0 (alpha version) FILES: x64-0.3.0.tar.gz DETAILS: See the x64 entry for details. Vdc: No. MMU: Bank switching only. COMMENTS: The first version was released on April 1st, and there are many things still unimplemented. Basically it's just the 64 emulator with MMU bank switching and hard-coded shared RAM. ROMs not included. See the documents for details. 2.4 PET Emulators. PROGRAM: "The PET Emulator" FILE: ??? MACHINE: Commodore 64 AUTHOR: Commodore 64 Software Bonus Pack DETAILS: Emulates 2001 series, 4032 series & basic 4.0 COMMENTS: From their blurb: "The PET Emulator allows most existing PET programs written in BASIC to be RUN on the Commodore 64". 2.5 SID Emulators. Programs of this kind emulate the Sound Interface Device chip (MOS 6581), the MPU (MOS 6510) and few additional hardware components of the C64/128 on machines where these chips don't exist. Their only aim is to give you the possibility to listen to all the many soundtracks from C64 games and demos. This is done by executing 6510-machine code routines that access the SID chip to produce music or sound output. In general these subroutines are independent fragments of code and data which can be ripped from games and demonstration programs and are transfered directly from the C64. The quality of a SID emulator's sound output is very machine dependent, but due to the fact that only the necessary hardware components are emulated, the sound quality should be higher and more realistic than the output of the average C64 emulator. Refer to chapter 2.7.2 and 4.7.2 of this FAQ on where to find all the SID music files you'll ever need. PROGRAM: Play SID VERSION: 3.0 FILE: PlaySID3.0.lha OLD FILES: PlaySID-2.0.lha, PlaySID2.1.dms, PlaySID2.2.lha MACHINE: Commodore Amiga AUTHORS: Haakan Sundell & Ron Birk , DETAILS: Sid: Yes, all except filter, also works with multi-tasking. 6510: Yes, with Undocumented opcodes. COMMENTS: C64 Sid chip emulator.3.0 supports viewing of most C64 picture formats, has a realtime waveform/envelope display, supports "multiselect" in filerequester and has some other nice improvements. PlaySID has full AREXX support. See a full review in the appendix. PROGRAM: SIDPLAY VERSION: 1.40a FILE: sidp140a.zip OLD FILES: sidpl???.zip (where ??? is the version number) MACHINE: IBM PC running DOS AUTHOR: Michael Schwendt (3schwend@informatik.uni-hamburg.de) DETAILS: SID: Yes, to Soundblaster, Pro Audio Spectrum, or Gravis Ultrasound soundcards. 6510: Yes, with undocumented opcodes. COMMENTS: C64 SID-chip emulator. Compatible to PlaySid (Amiga) music data files. Separate shell program for use of a DOS shell while playing. NTSC or PAL speeds. PROGRAM: Midi Music Maker VERSION: v2.26 FILE: mmm226.lzh MACHINE: Atari ST AUTHOR: Dave Henry DETAILS: Plays Sid Player Music (including stereo and lyrics ) & Master Composer files. COMMENTS: Also plays music from other computer systems. 2.7 Other utilities & files. There are many different transfer programs which you can use to transfer data from a c64 to another machine. This section lists some and gives in-depth looks to the more popular ones. 2.7.1 Utilities disk64e.arj - Creates .d64 files using 1541 for IBM PC. x1541.zip - Copy files directly from 1541 to PC. c64uti5.zip - Disk utilities for c64s09 emulator for IBM PC. maketape.arj - A tape utility for c64s09 emulator for IBM PC. copy2d64.arj - Convert files into .d64 inmages. zip2d64.arj - Convert C64 zip-files (1!, 2!,..) into .d64 images. d64.lha - Utility for AMIGA. maketape.arj - Makes .t64 files, includes source. dir_d64.zip - List catalog of .d64 files for IBM PC. d64util.zip - .d64 utils. d64_10.zip - Transfer files between standard, .t64 & .d64 on IMB PC. d64zipcode.c - Convert d64 files back to zipcode files. unt.lzh - Tape utility for Amiga. UNd64_380.lha- d64/t64/p00 archive file processor for Amiga. + 64cpy203.zip 64Copy v2.03, a program used to convert and inspect C64 + files for use with emulators, featuring: + - Norton Commander-type window interface + - creation/conversion of files to C64 file format + - verifying the integrity of a d64/x64 file + - automatic converson of ZipCode and Lynx (C64 archive format) files + - configurable windows and colors + Author is Peter Schepers (schepers@dcs1.uwaterloo.ca) + tr64_122.zip - Trans64 v1.22 - main features are: - transfer files between 1541, virtual disks, virtual tapes, dos and PC64 format. Supports C64S 1.0E encrypted disks. - transfer whole disks between 1541 and virtual disks. Added an error detection to continue after a read error. - fastloader for 1541 and 1581 (problems from version 1.02 are fixed) - German and English user interface + - Source is in tr_src20.zip Author is Bernhard Schwall (schwall@athene.informatik.uni-bonn.de) sc070.zip - The Star Commander - beta version .7 - outlook, colors, hotkeys and controls just like in The Norton Commander - high speed routines handle the disk and tape images of C64S - handles files and disks in a Commodore 1541/1571 drive connected via the X1541 cable, with built-in semi-automatic calibration - three modes for transferring disks from and to the CBM drive: normal (reads a disk in 7:50, writes in 9:55), turbo (2:25, 2:25) and warp (1:15, 1:20) with full error handling - three modes for transferring files from and to the CBM drive: normal (reads a 210 block file in 2:20, writes in 2:25), turbo (1:00, 1:00) and warp (0:25, write not yet implemented) - fast execution of CBM DOS commands and some extended CBM DOS commands - powerful disk editor similar to Disk-Demon for disk images and disks - support for color and monochrome VGA, EGA, CGA and MDA video cards - optionally runs with the C64 character set on EGA/VGA video cards - many configuration options for total comfort, context sensitive online help - user-defined menus and extension files for associating commands, external viewers and editors with DOS file extensions - works fine under the DOS emulator of OS/2 3.00 Warp Author: Joe Forster/STA (sta@ludens.elte.hu) fvcbm20.zip - List directories of Commodore archives. I've just released ver. 2.0 of fvcbm, a program which lists the directories of Commodore archives. This new version handles many new archive formats - all the ones I could find which are usable on the Commodore 64 and 128 or Commodore 64 emulators. The supported formats are: ARC230 (ARC) self-extracting ARC230 (SDA) Lynx CS-DOS (LZH) self-extracting CS-DOS (SFX) PC64 emulator files (R/S/U/P00) emulator tape images (T64) emulator disk images (D64 and X64) The C source is public domain and has been tested under MS-DOS, SCO UNIX, and Linux. The program requires a little-endian CPU to run so Sparc and most other workstation users are out of luck. The package is available from ftp://ftp.wimsey.com/pub/msdos/misc/fvcbm20.zip (anonymous uucp from van-bc is also available). If you know of an archive type that isn't supported, please send me an example and I'll look into adding it. Author is Daniel Fandrich (dan@fch.wimsey.bc.ca) 2.7.2 Data files. The sites arnold.hiof.no and rush.uwaterloo.ca both offer an extensive selection of C64 games and other program files. Be sure to look further on in the FAQ for the famed list of FTP sites of interest. =========================================================================== 3. Questions & Answers ---------------------- A section to answer common questions that emulator users pose. Please forward any questions or answers you think would be appropriate for this section to the faq maintainer, or just post to the newsgroup! 3.1 General. Q: Is it legal to get copyrighted games for the C64 for free on the net? A: Good question. It is true that most of the games on the net are still copyrighted, and will be for a long while. However, the companies and authors that hold these copyrights have not taken any action against anyone offering games via ftp or www. So, it seems that most copyright holders of old C64 games do not especially care about what happens to those games which are not selling anymore. As a result, it's mostly up to your sense of morality to decide whether to support sites that offer commercial software. But, keep in mind that the C64 as a viable market to sell software is not dead yet! In general it's a good idea not to put on the net anything released very recently. If you do, you are robbing what's left of the commercial scene from growing and prospering, and I hope you spontaneously combust. Q: Hey, I have this really cool game/demo/utility for emulators. Can I post it on this newsgroup for all to share? A: No, you may not. Firstly, it annoys people who read news offline due to high rates, who now have to spend over double the time d/ling because of your posting. Secondly, it causes the group's traffic to skyrocket, which could get the group deleted from your news server. It does happen! + Q: How can I use the emulator that comes with the Activision C64 Action + Pack to play games other than those which came with it? + A: You can't, as the emulator refuses to load anything that is not on + the cd-rom that it comes on. The only way around this would be to + try to 'crack' the cd-rom protection, which I have not seen a way to + do yet. Anyone? Q: Why would you want to emulate a CBM 8 bit computer? A: 1. As a coding exercise, to show it can be done. 2. Nostalgia. 3. Takes up less space than another computer, monitor, and disk drive 4. Don't have to worry about hardware going down or disks going bad. Q: Is there a way to read C64 disks on an IBM PC drive? A: No. The PC's disk controller is too "dumb" to be able to be programmed to read non-MFM disks. The C64 uses GCR. This limitation is why the PC cannot read Amiga disks either. Q: So, how can I get my C64 disks from the C64 to the PC, then? A: One possibility is to set up a null-modem cable between the 64 and the emulator machine, and use a serial transfer. If you have a 1571 or 1581, then you can use either the Big Blue Reader (BBR) or the Little Red Reader (LRR) to read/write DOS formatted disks. BBR is commercial and can still be purchased, and LRR is a freeware version of BBR. A better way (if you still have access to a C64 disk drive) is to use the transfer utilities that come with the emulators C64S and PC64, or a specialized transfer utility such as X1541, Trans64, Star Commander and so on. These utilities require a special cable that connects the C64 drive to your PC's parallel port; the schematic for this cable comes with the emulators. Finally, utilities like 64NET allow you to copy files from the 64 to the PC's disk drives, and as a matter of convenience allow you to access your D64 files from the 64. Q: Which is the best emulator? A: Opinions vary, naturally. Since the majority of emulators are either freeware or shareware, your best bet is to download which ones interest you and see which you like the best. The two main emulators for the PC are C64S and PC64, and both have their own advantages and disadvantages. C64S has somewhat better graphics emulation and supports fastloaders, but is very slow on older computers when fully emulating the 1541, and is fairly expensive to register. PC64 has a superior user interface and can do some things C64S cannot, but its sound capabilities are not as good as C64S's. Ultimately, of course, it's your choice :) Q: How can I 'grab' graphic images of the screen while an emulator is running? A: In C64S, just hit the Print Screen key and a file (C64Sxxxx.bmp, xxxx being a number) will be outputted to your directory. Other emulators do not have a built-in screen grabber, so your best bet is to use a TSR screen-grabber such as Screen Thief to get graphic images. Q: How do I use more than one disk at a time on either PC64 or C64S? A: Have both disks in your directory, for example: disk-1.d64 disk-2.d64 When the game asks for disk 2, hit F9 in C64S (or F5 in PC64) and change the disk to disk-2.d64. Q: Can somebody post me the BASIC and KERNEL ROM code in order to get my C64 emulator working? A: ftp.funet.fi, in the dir /pub/cbm/c64/firmware, has all versions of the BASIC and KERNEL roms there, with a good index. 3.2 C64S. Q: How do I run other .d64 files with the C64S emulator demo version 1.0c? A: Just rename the .d64 file you are interested in to testdisk.d64. It will work just fine under c64s10cd. Q: OK, but how do I get multi-disk games to work in C64S shareware v1.0c? A: Create a number of subdirectories, containing the .d64 files of the game you want to play in C64S 1.0c. Rename them all to testdisk.d64, and then use the DOS utility 'subst' to substitute those dirs with drive letters. For example: subst e: c:\c64\disk2 When your game asks you to change the disk, use the CD command in the disk menu to change the disk and press E. Then return to the game and press space or whatever to continue loading. Keep in mind that none of this is necessary with C64S v1.1b, since it allows you to select any disk you want. Q: What kind of machine is best for running C64S? A: C64S reaches 100% speed on a 486-33, but with a lowered frame rate. On a 486dx2/66 it runs at 100% with a 1/1 or 1/2 frame rate, and on a fast enough Pentium you can get it running at up to 600%. If C64S is too slow on your computer, try adjusting the frame rate, as the VGA card you have is probably the main bottleneck that the emulator has. Q: There are some objects on the screen that you will just pass through as if they didn't exist. I noticed it on Miner 2049'er and Jumpman. Is this fixable or just a bug? A: Read the manual! If the screen refresh is not set to Original, some games may have spotty collision detection. Q: Why is C64S 2.0 so slow on my computer? A: Probably because you have "Full 1541 emulation" turned on. In order for C64S to be able to emulate the 1541 100% it unfortunately has to devote a lot more time to the 1541 emulation; hence the slowdown. To get around it, simply set the 1541 emulation to "Regular" in the config utility; you don't need full emulation except for fastloading/ copy-protected programs. Q: So, what's in store for the next version of C64S? A: The next version appears to be _the one_ where Miha will go for true near-100% c64 emulation. The CPU, timer, and sprites will be 100% correctly emulated, most if not all VIC tricks will work correctly, there will be several new Super VGA video modes with blends and inter- laces, digitized tapes will be supported, the "freeze" file format will be finalized, the emulator will be made a bit speedier, and in short, Miha will have a very busy year ahead of him. :) Q: Shouldn't it be possible to stick all the C64 games in one HUGE .T64 file, and thus have easy access w/ descriptions to all the games? A: Theoretically it is possible; however, for practicial reasons (DOS is low on memory etc.) C64S limits the maximum number to 64. 3.3 PC64. Q: What are the keys for the joystick? A: Use the arrows on the numeric keypad and Ctrl to fire. Don't forget to turn Num Lock off. Q: Can you use a printer with PC64? A: You can connect the devices 4..7 either to a device like PRN or a DOS file. There are 4 code mappings CBM -> ASCII: channel 0 = big letters, channel 7 = small, rest = unchanged all big letters all small letters leave everything unchanged If you want mapping *AND* graphics, you can open 2 files with different channels (e.g. 7 and 1). Q: Can PC64 do PC speaker sound? A: Sorry, no. The SID voices 1 to 3 are mapped to the Adlib FM part of a Soundblaster compliant card, and the samples over $D018 go to the DSP. Q: Is there a way to get an analog IBM compatible joystick to work in pc64? A: IBM analog joysticks on a game card and C64 digital joysticks on the PC64 cable are supported only in the registered version. Q: Do ISEPICed files work with PC64? A: Yes, but only if they are in .P00 format (and not on a .d64 disk image). The ISEPIC loader tries to read the disk via 'M-R', and if this fails it will load the data file with the standard routines. Q: How does the sound support work? A: PC64 maps SID voices 1 to 3 to Adlib and digitized samples to Soundblaster DAC. Voice synchronisation, ring modulation and filters aren't supported. The Adlib sounds a little different from the original, but the tunes are cleaner than the sample approach of C64S, C64Alive and SIDPlay. Digital drums and noises sound good, but digitized speech has timing problems if the is higher than 1. Q: What are all these ROMS that come with PC64? Are these legal? A: r1.64k, r2.64k, r3.64k different revisions of kernal original.64k kernal r3 with load default #8 and short RAM test sx64.64k kernal from SX 64 64ersys1.64k extended kernal from 64'er magazine exosv3.64k another extended kernal from 64'er magazine original.64b Microsoft Basic V2 original.64c 4K character ROM vc1541.64d 16K VC1541-I floppy ROM As for legality.. the author of PC64 has asked both the German sites of Commodore and Microsoft if they would let him distribute the ROMs. Commodore Germany directed him to Commodore USA, and he hasn't heard anything from anyone at all since; so, he decided to include the ROMs without permission. If this situation suddenly changes, you can still read the ROMs from a connected C64 if you need to (the Manager/Read ROMs command). Q: Can you please list the extra commands / features of the two kernal replacements that come with PC64? A: Here are the main features of the 64'er System 1 ROM: - Fast loader, about 6 times (useless on the emulators (: ). You need a second ROM for the 1541. - Additional keys: F1 = (directory) F2 = sys4096* F3 = list[return] F4 = old, restores Basic programs after reset F5 = [cls]run[return] F6 = off, disables extensions F7 = load[return] F8 = device 8/9, sets default drive Ctrl+CursorDown = go to last screen line LeftShift = Stop scrolling - Shift+Run/Stop default is floppy - "Wedge", i.e. floppy commands and status with @ - The 1541 @ replace bug has been fixed Q: How can I set PC64 up with Linux dosemu? A: This is an excerpt of the PC64 user manual (thanks to Marko Makela): Linux dosemu The emulator has been used on Linux with kernel versions 1.1.64 to 1.1.73 and dosemu 0.53.35. If you get a newer version of dosemu, you may need to upgrade the Linux kernel as well. This instruction assumes that dosemu is already running. Note that the configuration file /etc/dosemu.conf must be edited to allow graphics. Disable the video BIOS shadowing and use the setting "allowvideoportaccess on". Uncomment the "video" line that corresponds to your display adapter. You should be able to start PC64 from the DOS command line, just like you would do in MS-DOS. If you want to use the joysticks or the L64 link, you may need to edit /etc/dosemu.conf to grant access to the corresponding I/O ports. The sound is not likely to work, even though you grant access to the AdLib or Soundblaster registers. The SoundBlaster registers are at 0x210-0x29f, depending on the jumper settings. ports { 0x201 } # analog joystick ports { 0x378 0x379 0x37a 0x37b } # LPT1 ports { 0x3bc 0x3bd 0x3be 0x3bf } # LPT2 ports { 0x278 0x279 0x27a 0x27b } # LPT3 ports { 0x2bc 0x2bd 0x2be 0x2bf } # LPT4 ports { 0x388 0x389 } # AdLib Note that there is a bug in dosemu: If a DOS program is running in graphics mode, and you switch to another console with Ctrl+Alt+Function key (F1-F8) and back to dosemu, the graphics screen will not be updated. If you haven't set the option "VGA card on local bus" in Options / Desktop, you have to press ESC and F5 after switching back to PC64 in order to refresh the C64 screen. Q: How can I load the p00 files that I have converted from the tape images(.t64)? A: , select the directory with the cursor keys, press to go into the file list, select the program and press . Or associate the extensions .P00, .C64 and .D64 with PC64.EXE if you are using a DOS or Windows shell. Q: How can I speed it up? I have a dx280 and donkey kong is running a little slow compared to c64s. A: Both Donkey Kongs from Nintendo and Ocean don't use heavily scrolling so you should get about 200% with a 486DX2-80. PAL is about 4% slower than NTSC. If you have set to 1, set it back to 2. The setting 1 is only necessary for 0.5% of the games. You may also try to increase the from 100 to 110 or somewhat. Q: Certain games (most EA games, for example) generate CPU jam errors no matter what I do. Is this a problem with fastloaders or with disk copy protection? A: There are certain illegal opcodes ($02, $22, ...) which halt the 6510 CPU. Neither IRQ nor NMI can change this state; only a RESET works. When the emulators encounter such an illegal opcode, they print out an error message (PC64 uses some of the opcodes as ROM traps). If a CPU jam happens, first copy the disk image back to a 1541 and run the program on a real C64. If it doesn't work, it's either a copy protection or your disk image has been crippled. Some transfer programs between 1541 and PC do not use checksums. If the program runs on a real C64 but not on PC64, it is using C64 features which aren't emulated yet. Try it then on C64S or C64Alive. The quality of the emulation in PC64 1.x will no longer be improved because all energy now flows into Personal C64 2.0 for Windows. The new versions 1.12, 1.13 and so on contain only bug fixes and solutions for hardware conflicts. You can easily detect a fast loader in PC64: Run the program and wait till it hangs, then press ESC once. Nothing happens? Then it has a fast loader. You must press ESC again to go back to the desktop. If the first ESC works, restart the program with SHIFT+F5. Wait 2 seconds and press ESC. Now watch the protocol: Are there many red lines "Userport und serieller IEC-Bus werden nicht unterstuetzt"? Then again, it's a fast loader. You can go to the next and previous error with F4 and SHIFT+F4. If it has no fast loader, it could hang in an endless IRQ loop. Press I to go to the next IRQ event. Is the command above a RTI? If yes, the program either uses some undocumented trick to issue an EOI or it is timing dependent. As the disk access on the emulator is so much faster, a program which expects an IRQ to clear $DC0D in the meantime will not always run. Q: What are all the timing settings(what do they do and mean?)... A: Update screen every nth vertical refresh A C64 updates the screen 50 (PAL) or 60 (NTSC) times per second. One Update is called "vertical refresh". As the VIC consumes 80% of the emulation time, you can increase speed by increasing this value. If you set it to 60, the screen updates once per second. Then you get 500 percent on a 486DX2-66. This is only useful for applications. For games, use settings between 1 and 5. The default is 2 which means 25 fps (frames per second). Limit 6510 performance to n percent A C64 is always 100 percent fast. The emulator will run as fast as possible, e.g. 150 percent on a 486DX2-66 with schreen refresh 1:2. To get original C64 speed, you should set this value to 100 percent. The PC will then waste the 50 percent difference between 150 and 100 with waiting. Use VideoCounter algorithm #n If a game doesn't scroll correctly (Boulder Dash, Rambo, 1942), then try settings 2 or 3. Start of interrupt consumes n cycles VIC[12h]: Report new line at n percent The first setting is for Raster IRQ, the second for Raster Polling. Change them if there is a single wrong line at the beginning or at the end of a screen switch (scolling region <-> non scrolling region or text <-> graphics) or if there is a single flickering line. The shortcuts are and . Enable char and sprite DMA Takes away 43 cycles from the CPU on a bad line and 2 cycles for each visible sprite in the current line. Switch it on if a game uses C(h?)opper Bars, i.e. every raster line has another background. It will also remove ghost sprites on some games. Video Leave that to PAL and switch it only to NTSC if a game doesn't run. PAL consumes less time for VIC emulation. Real time If the emulation doesn't run with 100 percent, you can set certain IO chips to work with real time. I.e. if you run with 500 percent and your program uses IRQ music, you can hear it at original speed by selecting real time for Timer 1A. Default for new emulator windows If you click this checkbox and press OK, the current settings will be the new default settings for all unknown programs, e.g. . Otherwise only the settings for the program in the title bar of the dialog box will be saved. 3.4 Other emulator specific. Q: I have problems extracting the files from AMIGA .lha sidtune archives, which I downloaded from Ami-Net or , on my PC running DOS ! Further I can't get SIDPLAY to accept the extracted files ! A: Consult the FAQ to SIDPLAY. It is available in the latest SIDPLAY package or by asking the author <3schwend@informatik.uni-hamburg.de> to send you the latest version (SIDPLAY v1.25b handles fixed *.INF/*.info files). Q: Has anyone been able to get the A64 emulator for the Amiga running? Every time I start it up, the system crashes. A: What version? If it's V2, then it always crashes under Kickstart 3.1. V2 works under Kickstart 3.0, but not if you use the OCS/ECS chips (using AGA scrambles the display :-P). To be sure of getting A64 to work you have to use Kickstart 2.0. If it's V3, then you may have to turn the data cache off on a 68040/060. Q: Hey, could it be possible for Frodo to take over the whole system like A64 does? Would it speed up the emulation much? A: The author informs me that there will never be a non-multitasking version of Frodo, as the speed gain would be marginal enough (1-2%) that it wouldn't be worth it. Q: Anyone ever get C64 Alive working? I can't seem to figure out what to call the ROM files, and the docs are of no help. A: (Part 1) You don't have to call ROM files, just type 'c64alive.exe' - if this doesn't work - for me it works fine - there must be some other problem like the extended video mode (on my Speedstar 24 (ET4000)) C64S does not run instead ... (Part 2) Load NO drivers except himem.sys. It worked fine from there. It only loads single files, and in raw format which trans64 converted fine. (from George A Neal ) Q: I'm running A64 v3 on my AGA machine and the sprites are messed up! A: Questronix fix: Set your sprite pointer to lo-res. BETTER FIX: Use the PD utility KILLAGA to trick your Amiga! 1) From the CLI, type ED A64! (Be sure to specify directory!) 2) Type KILLAGA A64 (specify directory of KILLAGA) 3) Save A64! (In same place as A64) 4) Go into ICONEDIT and save A64!.icon as a PROJECT 5) Go to Workbench and get info on A64!. Enter ICONX as the default tool. Q: I'm having some trouble getting Trans64 to work. A: Don't just press the "test" button once, press it ten times and if any one of the test's fail then adjust your delay. I say 10 because if your delay is not long enough it will show up in one of the 10 tests. I have the delay set to 40; the machine I have is a 486 DX/2 66 and my parallel port comes off one of these vesa local bus ide multi i/o cards. If I drop the delay to less than 40 then sometimes I get unpredictable results with the test. =========================================================================== 3.5 How-to... (moved from Appendix B). 1. Playing multi-disk-image games with C64S 1.0C 2. Using VIC-EMU. 3. Running certain games. 4. Converting between different file formats. ========================================================== 1. Playing multi-disk-image games with C64S 1.0C [Note that v1.1b of C64S allows multi-disk games without hassle. I include this since some people may not like the time limit in the shareware version of C64S 1.1b/c. -tsr] J. Kevin Wells - nstn1297@fox.nstn.ca writes: There is a method of playing multi-disk-image games with C64S 1.0C shareware. The method is a bit cumbersome and works best with games that involve infrequent disk changes. 1. Copy the first disk-image file as TESTDISK.D64. 2. Start C64S. 3. Load and play the game until you are prompted for a new disk. 4. Press F9 to bring up the utility options. Press Alt-T to enter the tape-image section and press enter on TESTTAPE.T64. 5. Press F to select the Freeze option and type in a file name. Your game will be saved to the tape drive. If the tape drive is full, delete a file you do not need. 6. Press ESC to exit to the C64 emulator. 7. Press CTRL-BREAK to quit C64S and exit to DOS. 8. If the game has altered the disk-image in any way (saved your game to the disk, for example), copy TESTDISK.D64 back to its original file name from step 1. 9. Copy the requested disk-image file (usually Disk 2) to TESTDISK.D64 10. Start C64S again. 11. Press F9. Press Alt-T to enter the tape-image section and press enter on TESTTAPE.T64. 12. Select the file you froze in step 5. Press ESC to exit to the emulator. 13. Press Shift-TAB to load and run the frozen program. The game should be at the point where it is requesting the disk change. Follow the program's instruction for signaling that you've changed the disk. 14. When prompted for another disk, repeat the process at Step 4. One thing to keep in mind is that the Frozen program is kept on the tape drive until you delete it. You might want to delete the frozen file when you're finished playing the game, or between disk swaps. Remember that you can use this frozen file to restore your game at the point it was frozen again and again. The Freeze option is a very powerful feature, similar to the Snapshot cartridge on the original C64. You can use it to save virtually any program at any point - even games that don't have a save function. I haven't tested this method of using multiple disks with every game out there, but the ones I did try seemed to work. Try the method out with a particular game, if possible, before getting into any heavy gaming sessions. [note, again, that none of this stuff needs to be done with C64S 1.1b, since it allows multi-disk games without hassle. The information is included just in case you find the ten-minute timer on C64S 1.1b annoying.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Using VIC-EMU. Question: Hi, I'm currently trying to use Peiter van Leuven's VIC-EMU to run some VIC-20 software on my AMIGA. I have some VIC files on Amiga Formatted floppy's as well, but the documentation doesn't say how to run it with the emulator! It does suggest that you have to use memory addresses, but how do us non-programmers know what memory addresses to use for a binary file or a BASIC file? I've had no success. The command structure is like this; vic-00 $???? filename What is the proper address for ???? in order to get a program to run? ------- Answer 1: Well, you might be asking about at what position Basic starts on the VIC. On an unexpanded machine, it starts at $1000 (and load file at $1001). On a +3k machine (as the emulator default), it starts at $0400 ($0401) On a +8k machine and more, Basic starts at $1200. (load at $1201) Binary files normally load with LOAD "name",device,1 and you have to find out where to load it yourself. (I know there's a method by looking at the first bytes of the file, but I don't know how). BTW: The version of VIC-EMU doesn't seem to load files inside the emulator very well (e.g the load-command hangs, and there's no RESTORE key). ------- Answer 2: Well, Pieter sent me a message letting me know how to load a BASIC or disk image file into the VIC-EMU. There is a way to find out what position a file starts at, you look at the first four bytes of the file and then switch them around, or something to that effect. Once you have done that you use that number as the memory address: vic-20 $1000 filename Then from the VIC emulator screen you type LOAD "filename",8 and it will load it. However, my problem is that from the CLI command, I'm not clear on what filename I'm supposed to include! The filename for the program I want to load or what? The emulator won't activate unless you include a filename in the CLI command, but putting the filename for the disk-image file you want doesn't seem to do anything, you still have to load it the old fashioned way (LOAD "",8) to get it to show up. I guess my question is; how do I just make the emulator activate (i.e. just like a vic after power up) without having it run a program, etc --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. Getting certain games to work. a. Racing Destruction Set Oh, I bet I know what your Racing Destruction Set problem is. It's the one that the game tells you to flip to side two, but it never tells you to flip to side one. It's understood that you flip back to side one at every significant pause in disk acess. In particular, if you modify a car, then flip the disk back to side one before you leave the car modification menu. After loading a track from side two, when you want to return to the menu, flip back to side one BEFORE telling it to go back, because it will hapilly try and load the menu from side two and crash. From: Chuck Cochems (zaphod@camelot.bradley.edu) b. Mail Order Monsters This is a hint that works wonders on the 64 version of the game: Copy your original disk (obviously not necessary for the emulators) and change the disk name and ID (with a disk editor or utility program) to "ownerdisk,ea" This makes your master disk an owner disk (there's ~100 blocks free on the original, each owner takes ~1 block of Commie disk space, so you'll probably not have to worry about running out of disk space.) I have about 9 owners on a copy of the disk, and we have a lot of fun with this game. Just keep hitting RETURN when it wants a disk. Enjoy. From: Michael Miller (mmiller3@gac.edu) c. Bruce Lee Actually, I have yet to find a version of this game which doesn't crash on a real C64 (NTSC or PAL). So, my advice is to reset and try again if the game crashes on you. 4. Converting between different file formats. Q: How can I convert the ZipCode files (1!..,2!..etc.) found on various ftp-sites to a format usable by the emulators? A: Grab the file zip2d64.arj on any of the emulator ftp-sites. The syntax for conversion is: zip2d64 zip.gam zipgame.d64 to convert the files 1!zip.gam 2!zip.gam 3!zip.gam 4!zip.gam to the file zipgame.d64. Alternatively, several C64 transfer utilities (64Copy and Star Commander) have built-in utils for ZipCode conversion. Q: OK, but what about Lynx files (*.lnx)? A: On the emulator ftp-sites there is also a DOS executable that extracts files from a Lynx archive. Alternatively, you can down- load the C64 utility "Omega-Q" from the /utils directory at frodo etc. Put the .lnx file into a .d64 file, run Omega-Q and unlynx the files directly to a .d64 quickly and easily. The C64 transfer utilities 64Copy and Star Commander also are able to convert Lynx files to a usable format. 4. A list of ftp sites where emulation programs can be obtained. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Some of the emulation programs are duplicated at other sites. I have not listed every site that has a certain emulator, although I may have listed more than one site that has that emulator. If you would like to more about other cbm ftp sites then read the ftp list which is posted to comp.sys.cbm regularly by Howard Herman (72560.3467@CompuServe.COM). Any site maintainer who wishes their site listed here only needs to send me mail advising me of that fact! Format for listing: Site.Name /Directory MACHINE - program name 4.0.1 Site Maintainers. If you have any questions about specific emulator sites, then please contact the person named below. Site: ----- ftp.funet.fi cbm-adm@ftp.funet.fi ftp.seattlelab.com ds@seattlelab.com (Derek Smith) ftp.giga.or.at Guenther.Bauer@giga.or.at (Guenther Bauer) + arnold.hiof.no jonko@arnold.hiof.no 4.0.2 Site IP addresses. Site: ----- frodo.hiof.no 158.36.33.4 ftp.seattlelab.com 204.250.145.1 4.0.4 WWW Info. With the rapid proliferation of Web sites having CBM info., it seems fitting that they have their own section. http://www.hut.fi/~msmakela/cbm 85 then if peek(x)<>85 then 360 250 if peek(x)<>170 then 360 255 if peek(x)<>85 then 360 260 if peek(x)<>170 then 360 265 m$=chr$(peek(57342)):print "manufacturer = '";m$;"' "; 270 if m$="a" then print "(c64alive)"; 272 if m$="f" then print "(frodo)"; 275 if m$="p" then print "(pc64)"; 285 if m$="s" then print "(c64s)"; 290 if m$="x" then print "(x64)"; 295 print:v=peek(57340)+peek(57341)*256 300 for i=0 to 3:v$=mid$("0123456789abcdef",1+(v and 15),1)+v$:v=int(v/16):next 305 print "version = $";v$ 310 print:poke 780,160 315 if (m$="m" or m$="l") and v$="0100" and peek(60686)<>2 then poke 780,0 320 poke 782,223:sys 43806:print:end 325 : 330 rem ------------------------------- 335 rem these are manufacturer-specific 340 rem workarounds, which should be 345 rem replaced with the official 350 rem emulator detection method 355 : 360 if peek(60682)<>0 then 385 365 print "c64 software emulator" 370 print "(c)1991-94 miha peternel" 375 end 380 : 385 if peek(60736)<>0 then 410:rem untested 390 print "x64 (version 1 or 2)" 395 print "(c)1993-94 j.sonninen/t.rantanen/j.valta" 400 end 405 : 410 x=57087:if peek(x)+peek(x)+peek(x)<>0 then 435 415 print "c64alive" 420 print "(c)1993-94 f.littmann developments" 425 end 430 : 435 print "this is an original c64 or c128" You can distinquish a real C128 from C64 by testing the VDC status register at $D600/$D601: If the value written to $D601 remains intact, its a C128 in either mode, otherwise a real C64. There is no way (or need) to tell C64 from C64c though. 7.4 Other sources of information. There are a number of WWW addresses that may be of interest... - The Commodore 64 WWW Server. (Has a few c64s and x64 documents) http://www.hut.fi/~msmakela/c64.html - WWW Personal Computing and Emulation Homepage (General emulator pages, not just Commodore) http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/fms/comp/ - Commodore emulation (The Commodore section from the link above) http://www.cs.umd.edu/users/fms/comp/Emulation/Commodore.html - X64 Emulator / Simulator For Unix (Offical site for x64) http://stekt.oulu.fi/~jopi/x64.html - Commodore 64 computing (Home of the comp.sys.cbm FAQ) http://www.msen.com/~brain - Seattle Labs (Marketers of C64S) http://www.seattlelab.com/c64s.htm - Frodo and ShapeShifter Homepage (Official site for the Frodo emulator) http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002 - The Official PC64 Homepage http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/pc64/ ========================================================================= 8. Credits. ----------- If anyone has a better description for any of these emulators then send me a copy, also if you know of any other emulators or ftp sites then send me them as well so that I can update the information. Is any one out there thinking of making an emulator for a machine other than a C64. (eg C128, VIC20, Plus4, C16, PET) I will add this to the list also. Thanks to: All the emulator authors - For writing your emulator; All the utility authors - For writing your utility! :) frodo, lennon, funet, etc. - For keeping the emulators and stuff online! Jim Sloan : jsloan@u.washington.edu - For posting the rom extraction routines on comp.sys.cbm. Jouko Valta : jopi@stekt.oulu.fi - For sending me some documentation on the ATARI-ST emulator, the rom extraction routines, and comments. - For "5. Emulator File Formats" section. - For sending me the updated Kernal ROM section. - For sending me the regular updates! Jim Brain : brain@msen.com - For his comments & questions on version number. Jens-Uwe Rumstich : rumstich@informatik.hu-berlin.de - For pointing out some German ftp sites & c64alive emu. Eli Mackenzie : eli.mackenzie@fleming.edu Fredrik Ekman : D91FE@rby.hk-r.se Eric Brown : brown@sme.siemens.com - For info on Pet emulators Caronni : caronni@tik.ethz.ch - For SX-64 rom information. Per Olofsson : cl3polof@cling.gu.se - For info on A64 emulator. Marko Samuli Makela : Marko.Makela@hut.fi - For PET 64 aka 4064 aka Educator 64 kernel rom differences - For writing the C64 Kernal ROM revision section. Wolfgang Lorenz - For the program and description of emulator detection. - For answering so many questions. Paul David Doherty (h0142kdd@fx2800.rz.hu-berlin.de) - For posting the detection program and suggestions for standard file formats for the emulators. Guntram Blohm (blohm@mathematik.uni-ulm.de) - For description of the P00 file format and converting it. Kevin Brisley (kbrisley@tsegw.tse.com) - For description of the T64 file format and converting it. Michael Schwendt (3schwend@informatik.uni-hamburg.de) - For the excellant new intro to SID emulators. And extra special thanks to: Peter Weighill - stuce@csv.warwick.ac.uk - For all the hard work he put into getting this FAQ going. - For all the hard work he puts in to providing updates to the information presented here. :) =================================================================== Appendices: The things that don't really belong in the body of the faq, such as: A. Reviews: Lengthier comments about particular emulators, as they come to hand. These may, or may not, be "biased"! You are invited to add to or correct what is here. 1. PC64 2. A64 V3 3. C64S (commercial) 4. PlaySID V3.0 5. PC64 vs C64S 6. AXF-64.a16 --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. PC64 This review was deleted at the request of the emulator author, as it contained outdated information. He has, however, provided some additional information for the Q&A section. A "new" review would be most welcome! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. A64 V3. Review 1: Review by: James O. Shank Jr. HEE! v131p9t3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu AKA: Ninstar Cybermage I or shank@acsu.buffalo.edu Black Phoenix Rising... A or aa247@freenet.acsu.buffalo.edu as posted in comp.sys.cbm, 16 Jun 1994. I've recently had the opportunity to play around with a copy of A64 V3. I've found that alot of programs run. Not necessarily as well as on a c64, and slow, but alot more programs work than under version 2. On the other hand, some programs which worked fine under version 2 (times of lore, for example) do not work under version 3 because the graphics emulation, though faster, does not handle multiple graphics banks very well. Those of you who know alot about graphics are going "Uh-Oh" right now, but the problem doesn't seem to appear in all that many programs. One thing I've noticed is that the graphics Emulation runs a bit slower than the rest of the emulator at times, which means that if you play something very complicated, like a flight simulator, the input will be processed faster than the graphics, meaning that you can make a 90 degree angle turn between two frames. The convert software can solve alot of these problems by skipping the middle man where processing is concerned, and speeding up things by letting the Amiga do the work without the emulations help. It basically looks for the densest blocks of code and converts them into Amiga assembly language. Whenever the program tries to emulate a block that was translated, it executes the Amiga block instead. Under V2, this was a long and complicated process that most people lacked the expertise to perform, as you had to search through the assembly language yourself and tell the computer which blocks it had to convert. Under version 3, the entire process is automated, allowing you to load a memory map, tell the computer to convert it, and watch it go. I like the results I've had thus far, though I lack the memory(stock amiga 600) to do any large programs. The code files tend to be large. The sound emulation is much better. Under version 2, you needed an accelerated machine to get decent sound and often the sound was horrible anyway. Under V3, the sound is still distorted by speed at times, but the tones and sounds are mostly right on the money. If the program doesn't do a great deal of other processing, the sound is nearly perfect. Sidplayer, for example, was great, running almost up to speed with graphics and at speed without. Sidplayer can run at speed with graphics on if you boost the CIA rate, but occasionally the graphics will cause timing problems which make a note last a little too long or too short, etc. Advice: Run A64 on an accelerated machine if possible. Though it is possible to get enjoyment from games on a slower machine if you fiddle with the settings long enough and use convert, having an accelerated machine will make your life easier. If you're going to be using C64 roms and converting alot, then you may want to pick up an extra Meg of Memory. 2 Meg should be enough, though you can emulate the ram expanders if you have 3 or four 8-). (one Meg ram disk on a C64, who would have thought 8-) ). Review 2: From: korczyns@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Joseph Korczynski) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: The A64 Package, version 3.0 Date: 11 May 1994 19:29:31 GMT REVIEW The A64 Package is a hardware and software product. The hardware consists of a small box which has a male DB25 and 8 pin DIN connectors along with some special circuitry. This box connects to your parallel port and allows you to connect Commodore 8-bit serial peripherals such as the 15XX series disk drives and printers. NEVER PLUG THE INTERFACE INTO YOUR AMIGA WHILE THE AMIGA IS TURNED ON. You could damage your Amiga and peripherals by doing so. If you have an Amiga 1000 you will require an additional cable specifically made to connect A500/2000 devices to an A1000 parallel port. The hardware interface can stay plugged in at all times without interfering with any programs on your Amiga as long as they do not use the parallel port. If you want to use your parallel port with some other pieces of hardware like a printer or digitizer, you must either remove the hardware interface and install the other device or use an A-B switch box (Centronics parallel with female connectors). The software is a collection of Amiga programs which lets you access and run C64 software. The main program, A64, is the Commodore 64 emulator. The other programs allow you to transfer files between the C64 and Amiga disks (with 15XX disk drives). After you install The A64 Package and run the A64 program, you will notice that the BASIC startup screen is different from that of a real C64. This is because the Commodore 64 ROMs (two computer chips located inside a real C64 which contain the operating system) are not present in A64. The C64 ROMs are not included because they are copyrighted by Commodore. The A64 contains a complete C64 ROM emulation which allows A64 to run most C64 programs. A64 ROM emulation is very compatible with the C64 ROMs, but there may be some C64 programs that will not run because of the lack of real C64 ROMs. The A64 Package utilities includes a C64 BASIC program which can be transferred to a real C64 via a 15XX disk drive connected to the A64 hardware interface. This program when run on the C64 will dump the C64 ROMs to a file which can then be transferred back to the Amiga and used in the A64 emulation. A64 is a complete Commodore 64 emulator. Sound, graphics, BASIC and machine language are all emulated. A64 fully integrates with the Amiga by allowing you to use Amiga disk drives, hard drives, ram drives, printers and modems. A64 operates in two modes: Pause Mode and C64 Mode. When in Pause Mode, you have access to the A64 Prefs (preferences) and A64Mon (machine language monitor). The current C64 program that A64 is running will be paused. Pause Mode gives you complete access to the Amiga system, and multitasking is completely functional. The C64 Mode runs the C64 program. In C64 mode you do not have access to the Amiga system. Multitasking is not disabled, but A64 controls a majority of the Amiga system. To enter Pause mode from C64 Mode, press the two ALT keys simultaneously. A64 emulation speed will depend on the program you are running and the type of microprocessor that your Amiga uses. On 68000 based Amigas, A64 is not capable of running all programs at usable speed. Accelerated Amigas can see emulation speeds over 300%. Most games will not run over 100% no matter how fast your Amiga is. I've done most of my evaluation of A64 with public domain software. I have been able to run everything I can throw at it. I do enjoy browsing the ABCUG user group monthly C64 public domain program disk. A great deal of effort was spent trying to make the A64 as compatible as possible. The biggest problem with compatibility is related to disk I/O and custom disk drive routines. Custom disk drive routines "Fast Loaders" are extremely time critical and must run at exactly 100% speed in order to function properly. "Fast Loaders" vary from program to program. The only way to emulate "Fast Loaders" is to write a custom loader for each program which is impossible since there are hundreds of variations. A64 V3.0 supports some "Fast Loaders" using Patch Files. There are Patch Files for ISEPICed archived programs, SID/PIC V3.4, SIDPlayer, and GEOS. (GEOS is supported only on 68000 Amigas and 1541/1571 disk drives because of the time-critical nature of the GEOS operating system.) One method of speeding up A64 emulation is to convert the C64 program from 6510 opcodes to 68000 opcodes. This has the potential to double your emulation speed. This is accomplished with a utility called "CONVERT". The CONVERT utility converts C64 machine language into Amiga machine language. This conversion process eliminates a lot of work the A64 has do while running the emulation. A64Tools is the file transfer and file conversion utility. It allows you to copy, convert and print files using any combination of Amiga and C64 disk drives and printers. Text files can easily be converted between PetASCII and ASCII. Amiga drives only support PRG and SEQ files under A64 emulation. ":" and "/" are illegal characters for Amiga filenames. When A64Tools encounters on of these characters in a filename, the character will automatically be changed to a "-". As an original A64 V2.0 registered user, I am impressed with the enhanced SID chip support, increased speed and compatibility. I also welcome the addition of Patch Files for "Fast Loader" support along with support for GEOS. It was worth the $25 upgrade fee. DOCUMENTATION Documentations consists of a professionally printed softbound manual. It has an extensive index and table of contents. The manual assumes that you are familiar with the basic operation of the Amiga and the terms used to describe it. The manual also assumes you are familiar with the basic use of the Commodore 64. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the professionally bound manual. I like the patch file support. I like the improved SID support. I dislike the software not working in native AGA graphic mode. I would like to see 1581 emulation using native Amiga disk drives. CONCLUSIONS I enjoy the ability to emulate other computers. As Newsletter Editor the ABCUG user group which supports the Amiga and Commodore 64/128 computer users, I find A64 a valuable tool for reviewing C64 public domain software and writing tutorials for the monthly newsletter. Understanding the limitations of software emulation, I give this product **** (4 out of 5 stars). COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Joseph F. Korczynski. All rights reserved. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. C64S commercial. Reviews by: 1. Paul David Doherty (h0142kdd@fx2800.rz.hu-berlin.de) As posted in comp.emulators.cbm,4 Jul 1994. 2. Robert Rusbasan (rrusbasa@nyx10.cs.du.edu) As posted in comp.emulators.cbm, 20 Jun 1994. Review 1. by Paul David Doherty. I have spent an hour testing software which didn't work with the 0.9x versions of C64S, and none of them works with the 1.0c demo version, so I'd say that compatibility has not improved much. There are lots of cosmetic changes, but the emulator core seems to be the same as in the 0.9 versions. Some games I have tested: - Fahrenheit 451 (with copy protection AND fastloader removed) = doesn't work - Critical Mass (adventure) = the graphics are still messed up, no matter whether I chose NTSC or PAL mode - Masquerade = still doesn't show the pictures A new feature (?) seems to be a requester "CPU JAM AT ... : PRESS ANY KEY" which pops up with some games (Mask of the Sun, Amnesia) instead of crashing the emulator. However, C64S still crashes pretty often (and this means that neither will CTRL-ALT-INS reset the emulator, nor will you be able to leave it with CTRL-PAUSE, nor will you be able to reset your PC with CTRL-ALT-DEL! The only way out is the reset button.) This never happens with MC64/C64NEU, and it's a shame that Miha wasn't able to fix it. (As a rule of thumb, whenever "DISK IO" appears in the lower right corner of the screen you can press the reset button :-) Games which crashed totally in the above described way: - Infocom games (only if you use the fastloader) - Buckaroo Banzai - Fantastic Four (if you use the fastloader) - Lane Mastodon (and the other InfoComics) To put it straight, I don't expect C64S to support fastloaders (yet), but it shouldn't crash and lock up the PC. Besides, some of the games that don't work run flawlessly on MC64 (Lane Mastodon, Fahrenheit 451), so it's not just a fast loader issue. All in all, I'm not terribly impressed. If others found significant compatibility improvements, maybe they could post their experiences. Review 2. by Robert Rusbasan. Although I have generally preferred the C64NEU emulator, I got my tax return today and thought I'd call Seattle Lab and give them a chance to talk me into getting their commercial version of C64S. I was generally pleased with what I heard. The person I talked with seemed competent enough. When I told him that I had been impressed but also frustrated by the public version of C64S that Miha had released, he assured me that they have made a *lot* of changes. He said the pre-beta releases and the commercial release were "like night and day". I told him that I couldn't get my analog joystick to work, and the keyboard joystick emulation only seems to make sense to the author since I have yet to run across anyone that likes it. He replied that the analog joystick support has been radically improved, and that you can map the joystick to any keys you want in the commercial release. He said that it supports limited disk protection schemes, and they are going to continue to work on this. I whined that I and others have been unable to get any kind of response from Miha and asked if they planned to support the product. He told me they are going to have *strong* support for it, including phone, fax, email, and an ftp site! I asked if the ftp site was up now, and he said it sure was. You can access it at as.seattlelab.wa.com (204.29.31.1). Since it is very new, you might have to use the IP address. So far they only have the docs at the ftp site, but the list of enhancements indicates that there may indeed be some merit to the "night and day" claim. In particular, the sound and timing seems to have been improved. It seems you don't have to guess at the speed anymore, since you can set it to run at the original Commodore 64 speed, as fast as possible, or at a custom speed. Version 0.9 basically just gave you the custom speed and let you try to match the C64's original speed. Unfortunately, the docs still list Miha's email addresses as the source of email support. I assume that is out of date and they will have a Seattle Lab address soon. He also told me that there *will* be a new shareware version of the product out soon, and it will be put on the ftp site. That is a very smart move, in my opinion, because currently the people who found the program floating around have no way of knowing about the commercial version at all. I decided to go for it, which got me a bit of negative news. Right now they only ship COD, which adds $5 and brings the price to $60. He told me that they'll be able to take credit card payment shortly and offered to put my name on a list and call me when they could process my order that way, but I told him to go ahead and ship it COD. If anyone wants to take the plunge now, here is the order info: Seattle Lab 214 1st St. Kirkland, WA 98033 (206) 828-9001 (Voice) (206) 828-9011 (Fax) $55.00 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. PlaySID. Short: Version 3.0 of the famous SID emulator Author: rbk@ios.se (Ron Birk) Uploader: kunath@informatik.uni-muenchen.de (Peter Kunath) Type: mus/play NEW FEATURES: V3.0 (1994) * Uses PLAYSID.LIBRARY (please read separate docs) * Support of XPK Data Compression * Realtime waveform and envelope display (uses low priority task) * Shows C64 pictures (Koala, Blazing Paddles, Doodle, Adv Art Studio etc.) * TV System detection and selection * Channel on/off selection * PlaySID is now a commodity * Uses a config file for settings * Multifile selection (music and pictures) * Ability to show and hide PlaySID windows * Second PlaySID instance redirect modules to the running one * PlaySID font removed * More arexx commands * Many major bugs corrected PRODUCT INFO: This is a utility which uses the playsid.library to emulate the SID and 6510 chip. The SID chip is the component in the C64 computer that handles sound. The 6510 chip is the CPU of the C64, that means the component that actually executes all programs. Because the Amiga does not have these chips and others, you can't run C64 programs directly on Amiga. Now this utility lets you play all those C64 programs that produce sound. As you probably know, the C64 has three sound channels (the amiga has four). But this utility also allows use of the fourth channel. This channel is the product of some special programming on the C64, it isn't really a channel. The purpose of this product is to make the best conversion of C64 sound on Amiga ever possible. If you think some sound isn't correctly converted please let us know. This utility is designed to work with true multitasking, under any system version and any amiga model. It can be run from both Workbench and CLI/Shell. It should work with any other program that don't use sound or timing. If this isn't the fact please let us know. Some time ago we released a similar product called "The 100 most remembered C64 game-tunes". This product is the version 3.0 of that program. The tunes on that demonstration disk are now also available to this version. And up to date there are more than 400 tunes available. We and others are also working with more. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. PC64 vs C64S. Article by Jeremy Blackman, AKA Ranma Saotome in comp.emulators.cbm, 18 Feb '95. + [A quick note: Quite a bit in this review is now out of date. In + particular: PC64 now -does- support .d64 files, and has for a long time, + and C64S now can handle fastloaders. -tsr] Q:I am thinking about buying a C64 emulator, but I need some advice which C64 emulator to buy, the PC64 or the C64s? All the emulators on net are demos, and do not work completely, isn't that so? Or do they work just fine? I would appreciate any help. A:* Both C64S (my personal choice, cause PC64 don't support GUS for sound) and PC64 have ALMOST fully working demo versions. The limitations are that on C64S you cannot use an analog joystick until you register, you must use keyboard controls to simulate a joystick, and on PC64 you cannot use a joystick, nor can you access directly off a Commodore drive, which you can in the registered version. TO compare the two: * C64S is nice in that it supports GUS, which none of the others do (hey, PC64 person...hint hint hint ). It has a fairly easy-to- understand setup and interface, and overall works fairly well. I have run across a few games that don't work on it, for example, I cannot get the T64 of "Pharoah's Curse" to run on C64S, any version, though it runs on PC64. C64S also supports .D64 disk images, which is very nice. This allows you to use games which require swapping disks, like Adventure Construction Set, the Last Ninja (hey, why does this game die after the first level?), Racing Destruction Set, etc. * PC64 has a much less intuitive interface, but many more options. I particular like the option of using some of the alternative ROM set images, such as the 64SX image and the EXOSV3 images. (I've almost got a copy of EXOSV3 hacked into C64S......little side project. It sometimes crashes however, so I'm working on it). It however only supports Soundblaster, where C64S also supports GUS. It also refuses to acknowledge a GUS in SB mode, and also refuses to work off the SB clones (sound16a) in the other machine here. So for sound, C64S wins hands down. This emulator has shown more success in loading certain games, but due to the lack of support for .D64 type disk images, it can be a _REAL_ pain to run multidisk games, or games that require saved data disks. I current have written a program to take a .D64 and extract it into a directory so you can use the Manager for PC64 to set up subdirectories to fake the disk sides. Unfortunately, some games check the disk volume label, and PC64 automatically has the volume label be the DOS drive and path. So it cannot run some of these games. * Neither C64S nor PC64 can load Fastloader games at the present time, though there ARE programs out there to shut off Fastloader support. (I had one for use on my C64 since I had a Super Snapshot cartridge which was very much faster than any of those fastloaders, and it could conflict). Unfortunately, I have not seen any of these programs put out as D64 or T64 or P00 files. * PC64 appears to have support for cartridge images, but I'm not sure. (Could someone confirm or deny this?) If it does, it'd be nice if someone could take an image of the Super Snapshot cartridge... * It is possible to get VIC chip problems, such as flickering (try MULE, leave it on the title screen long enough and the credits begin to flicker, and Realm of Impossiblity loses the stat bar to static on rare occasions) on C64S. I have not managed to get these errors on PC64, and the video refresh is sometimes smoother. I have a 486DX2/66 before you ask, and local bus video. I am running under MSDOS, not Linux. I didn't feel like playing with Dosemu. In summary - I like C64S's simplicity of interface, and it wins by far on disk system since it supports those D64 images (though it'd be nice to have support for multiple disk drives, so you could select a disk image for drive 8, one for 9, etc...) and it wins by far on sound since it supports GUS. PC64 has more power, with the ROM set options, the Charset and Basic options (hey, I want some of those enhanced basic sets, anyone got an image?), but I have not gotten sound to work and I don't like the disk system as much, though the ability to set up multiple drives is very nice. PC64 has much more expandability, since it can use those ROM images (hey, anyone got a ROM image of the Commodore 65DX? I have the support and demo disks for it, and I'd love to play with the thing...I somehow doubt the hardware was 100% compatible, though.). C64S is the easier one to get up, running, and playing games with. So, for the moment, I leave both on. PC64 is for playing with hacking around on, and C64S is for the games. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. AXF-64.a16 Here's some details on AXF-64.a16 which is a c64 emulator for the Amiga. It is from an aminet ftp site. Short: C= 64 emulator, alpha 16 Author: borgen@hstud2.cs.uit.no (Bxrge Nxst) Uploader: kjelli@stud.cs.uit.no (Kjell Irgens) Type: misc/emu WHAT: Emulator of C= 64 for Amiga computers with 68020 or higher. WHY: Because A64 (both 2.0 and 3.0) sucks IMO. And I think the Amiga deserves good emulators like the PC has. (Update: I've seen Frodo now - good try, but way slower than mine... I think I can beat it.) HOW: First you need 3 files: C64.BASIC, C64.KERNAL, C64.CHARSET. These must be exactly 8192, 8192, and 4096 bytes big. These are just dumps of real C= 64 roms. They are not included for legal reasons, but I think several other emulators actually include them. Put these files in the current directory or in the same directory you store the executable. You can now start the emulator. You can LOAD files that are in RAM: or C64: (assign it where you have you your files). The fileformat is the same as A64 uses. Disk images are not supported. The keyboard is mapped nearly 100% like a real C= 64 so the keys wont always match the Amiga keyboard. The RESTORE key is not mapped at all. The joystick port of your Amiga maps to both C= 64 joystick ports. Bank switching is supported. Hires character mode is the only mode supported. Sound isn't supported. There is no restart option, you have to quit the emulator with the ESCAPE key or left mouse button. SPEED: No. Unless you have an 040/060 that can write 7M/s to chipram. Then perhaps. Unlike many other emulators (but like Frodo!) the relative speed of the screen update and the cpu speed does not change, it will always run internally like a 1MHz PAL C= 64, and never faster than a real C= 64. (Later versions might have adjustable speeds here.) WHY SELECT AXF-64: It does a few things that A64 doesn't. It can do raster bars. It can do raster interrupts and screen changes on a per line basis. It was made with big cpus in mind. TODO: First to come is multicolour character mode. I have ideas and all, but I need to test a little to see if I can make it fast enough. AGA support. Not only align bitplanes for more DMA time under AGA, but also use other algorithms to reduce chip bus activity. Sprites. I have code and ideas for that too. Bitmap modes. All timers. I have ready code for that too. Sound. Not sure what to do with this. Perhaps kludge in something with PlaySID? Support disk images. Make different screen update modes for different configurations. New in Alpha 15: Oooops! Sorry to all who downloaded Alpha 13. It relied on my patched Kernal to sniff LOADing :(((. Fixed now, and tested with the ROM that comes with Frodo. Copperlist building logic improved. Code simplified giving smaller size and more speed (a case of blowing the 040 caches methinks). New in Alpha 16: Redid the bankswitch logic for the VIC II chip. Seems to work better now, but I still have some unresolved cases for what to do when $D000 ram is banked in. Looked at raster interrupts, and they don't look good :-(. I got it a little better, but it still needs work... Since I'm doing my military service at the moment updates may be far and few between, and I wont have any email until summer 1995. I'll snailmail new updates to a friend of mine who will upload them. -Berge Nast ======================================================================== B. Advertisements. This is a catchall place for any product out on the market which isn't an emulator or such but still has something to do with C64-emulation. The views expressed here are not necessarily the views of the FAQ author! If you have something you think could fit in here please feel free to email the FAQ maintainer. You don't have to pay anything :) -------------------------------------------- 1. The High Voltage C64 CD. Have you ever stared at all those stacks of disks you have in the corner of your bedroom, trying to figure out where that one game or demo is? Have you ever had a disk go bad on you, without any backup available? Have you ever wished you could have your whole collection in one place for a change? Well, two members of the c64 'scene' have put together a CDROM for PCs and Amigas that try to solve these problems. This disk contains a huge amount of files dating across the C64's timeline. It contains over 600mb of software stored in about 3200 .d64 files. There's a grand total of about 4400 games from 1982-1995, 7700 demos from 1985-1995, and about 700 utilities. The most recent files are dated 4/14/1995, the day the CD was mastered. There are also many tools for the Amiga and PC to manipulate the files. The CD sells for 35 British pounds (that's about $55) For ordering information email darren@talent.demon.co.uk. Also send mail to this address to find out where in the USA you can send your money, if you're afraid of sending money overseas. For a list of the files on the CD as well as a C64-executable file with more information go to the ftp-site utopia.hack.nl and go to the directory /pub/c64/C64_CD. 2. GEOS Warp GEOS Warp is a program that works exactly like GEOS 2.0 for the c64. :) It will have releases on Power Mac, PC and Unix. The Power Mac ver- sion is currently 100% complete and will be released as soon as the legal matters with GeoWorks involving the release are agreed to. For more information on the project point your WWW-browser to: http://stud1.tuwein.ac.at/~e9426444/index.html 3. Breadbox CD-ROM This is a completely legal CD-ROM containing around 1200 disk images with public-domain software and shareware for the C64 and the C128. Even around 100 D64 files for GEOS are included. You'll find games, tools, pictures, demos ... The CD-ROM contains a windows menu program too, and a lot of PC and Amiga utilities to manipulate and extract D64 files. Additionally, emulators for other 8 Bit computers are provided, i.e. Sinclair Spectrum, ZX-81, TI99/4A, Amstrad CPC, MSX, CP/M, Dragon, Atari XL ... all come with software. Last but not lease I collected pictures of all these and other "orphan computers. The CD sells for $40US (incl. air mail to anywhere) or $35US in Europe (ordinary mail). Further info at: http://home.aol.com/MMatting Order address: Matthias Matting Wasserburgar Str. 35 85540 Haar Germany Email:mmatting@cube.net (source for info about the 64'er CD from the German magazine 64'er as well) ==========================================================================