C64

Commodore 64?!!

I'd bet money that this was the last thing you expected to see here on an Atari website. Well, I've had a C64 emulator on my drive for a while and figured it was about time to do something about it. So I started my day by trawling through Old Games Finder looking for games I remembered seeing in C&VG magazine in the early/mid-80s. I wanted to play Pitfall, Manic Miner, and Staff of Karnath, but sadly, I had zero success.

However, some worked (with the caveat that they displayed text rather than pixels), while others crashed the emulator (next time I'll read the docs). Basically, almost all games aren't supported if they use fancy scrolling, sprites, joystick control, etc. What work are things like educational titles or text adventures.

BTW, AtariCrypt has a section dedicated to emulation, which you can access by clicking here. Anyhow, would you like to see a screenshot of my programming skills in action on the virtual hardware?

I thought so! Check this out, and it's a good idea to make notes and learn from me...

B.A.S.I.C.

Ah, the extent of my coding knowledge! Perhaps it's best to leave that be and check out these commands instead? Now, I'm no Commie 64 expert, but these might help play C64 Jetpac...

LOAD "$",10             (this loads the disk's directory into Ram)
LIST                    (this lists that directory to screen)
LOAD "filename.prg",10  (you've guessed it, this loads a program)
RUN                     (go on, take a stab at what this might do!)

Please note:

• The "10" is the device ID for my Atari ST's hard drive.
• If you are running the emulator from floppy disk then you should instead use "8".
• Copy the Commodore ".PRG" programs into the same directory as the Atari file: "C64.TOS".
• C64 emulation was tested on my 8MHz Atari STe and Hatari (same spec) for the animation.

The CryptO'pinion?

I'm not sure who to credit for this emulator, but he/she did a great job, and the docs indicate many practical intentions. This has been fun, and the Commodore 64 is a decent machine (shush, don't tell anyone). However, there is no real support for anything beyond tinkering. Playing games was never gonna happen. Having said that, it's been a lot of fun to play with the C64 operating system and some programs.

Sadly, I'm not sure how much longer I can stand the pain of having C64 software stored on my Atari ST's hard drive!! So, I think I should delete this evil software and get back to using the ST properly ;)

If you fancy a dollop of Commodore fun, the best download (that I've found) is on disk LAN-0066 via Floppyshop, and it includes the documentation. Additionally, Old Games Finder can link to zillions of C64 stuff in the .PRG format. What a shame I never got to play more games...

Go on, give this a playtest and let me know how you get on in the comments below.