|2-C64s







|1-PC Emulator Review.



    Title        : C64S - Commodore 64 Software Emulator.
    Author       : Miha Peternel.
    Requirememts : 386, 640k RAM, VGA, DOS3.
    Options      : Soundcard (SB/Grav/ProAudio/Covox), Joystick.

One  of  the  major strengths of the PC is it's awesome processor speed,
and  one of the advantages of a fast processor is the ability to emulate
another  processor  entirely  in  software.   For  a  long time the main
computers have sought to emulate older machines which are no longer with
us,   machines  which  relied  on  old  technology,  slow  hardware  and
processors,  mainly  to  provide and escape from the pressures of modern
life  and  a route back in time to the days when these old machines were
the cutting edge of technology.

Possible  the  most  popular  emulated  machine  on  the  planet  is the
Commodore  64,  released as a rival to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k.  It
boasted  3-channel  sound  and  sprites  through custom hardware, all of
which, for the time, gave Joe Public a damned nice machine to play with.

C64s  is  by  far  the most advanced and technically accurate of the C64
Emulators available on the PC, it boasts the ability to reproduce all of
the  music  features  of  the machine, and a lot of the technical tricks
that programmers felt compelled to try at some stage or other, indeed it
is  the  only  emulator  available  that can run Wizball properly (which
requires Sprites in borders - pretty tricky stuff).  And this alone must
up it in the popularity stakes.

Speed  is  all  important  with  Emulation,  what  with the difficulties
inherent in emulating an entirely different processor, and C64s will run
at  100% on just about all Pentium-based machines, and quite probably on
a  speedy 486DX machine as well, perhaps Kei can give us the low down on
how it runs on his PC?  We'll have to see.

Several  file  formats  are supported, T64 (Tape files), D64 (Disk Image
Files)  and  P00 (???) are pretty much standard across the C64 emulation
scene,  and  so  can be passed between Amiga and PC emulators with ease.
The  program  has  seperate  menus  for the loading of T64 and D64, plus
options  for  emulating  joysticks, printers, floppy drives and even the
512k  RAM Expansion, mainly used by the GEOS paint system.  You can even
build  the cable to link a genuine C64 floppy drive (I still have mine!)
to your PC if you want, all this is handled by a seperate config program
so that's taken care of.

One brilliant idea was to have two modes of emulation of the 1541 floppy
drive,  a  full  one for programs that used Turboloaders, and a Fast one
that rips the D64 file off your harddrive as quickly as possible, ending
the four-minute load time on the odd game, what a blessing!

With  Epic  Software selling a CD containing 15,000 (eep!) games for the
princely sum of 29.99, it's possible to get just about any C64 game you
care  to mention in some format or other, presumably they do one for the
Speccy  as well, who knows?  The point is that, with these technological
advancements,  it's  now  possible to indulge in a little nostalgia at a
fraction of the original cost.

C64s is an excellent Emulator, is does just about everything you want it
to  and  more.   True,  there's the odd game that won't run due to fancy
hardware  tricks  ("Mayhem in Monsterland" and "Pitstop II" are the main
glaring  omissions  here),  but  there's  so much that DOES run, you can
quite easily forgive them this minor transgrassion.

|2-Overall - 9/10








-!-
