PocketC64: An Excellent C64 Emulator for PPC
PPCs are the best mobile devices for retro gaming. Check out my writeups on
All About PPC Emulators at the Gadgeteer and other PPC emulators at Pocket Gamer, BrightHand etc.
So when Click Gamer announced the latest PPC Pocket C64 emulator recently, I was all ears as that was the pc that was released when I was in college in USA. FYI the C64 is the color upgrade to the Commodore Pet which at its day was one of the top contenders for the home PC market. Today, all the Bios and Roms are on public domain and easily found on the web. Classic games like Lode Runner, Gorf, Boulder Dash and Bandits run better on the C64 than any other devices!
My first thought was, could it be better than the Come Back 64 by Domenico Dato and Johan Fitie? If so, this is really great as this emulator is no longer supported and all future development has been halted. When I emailed Chris Byatte at Click Gamer, I was very impressed with his prompt response to each comment I made. I went to the site yesterday and downloaded the emulator, installed it and took it with me to work. As I have already installed Come Back 64 on my PPC, I did not bothered with Bios, BASIC etc Roms. I played with it some at lunch, but spend most of the evening taking it through its paces.
Getting Pocket C64 installed and running was a breeze. Still, it is good to go to the very well written
FAQ for no-brainer step-by-step hand-holding walk through. Just install the emulator, place the C64 Bios and game Roms (there's even a link on the FAQ in case you don't know where to get 'em) in any directory under My Documents (in Ram or Storage Card) and you are ready to go. Double tapping the familar C64 icon gets you the nostalgic blue BASIC screen with the blinking cursor.
My first impression was that the entire GUI (graphic user interface) was very well laid-out. Certainly the developers have given much thought into this as it is no mean feat to put a keyboard, function keys etc on a PPC screen! But there's much more than good looks! Tapping on the screen gets you all sorts of layout - larger, smaller, landscape, full screen... the works. Once you configured your keys, they will work on any of these modes. Nice.
Right from the start, I was getting all sorts of games to run - some that Come Back 64 couldn't. Simply open it with the auto folder and 99% of all my C64 Roms worked flawlessly. I must say the music is better than I expected - it is really good. I can recommend without reservation that for a mere $6.99, Pocket C64 is great value for your money. As a retro fan, this is a MUST in my collection.
Here are more details that I spotted on the website: Support for .d64, .t64, .prg, .lnx and bas files;
Multiple screen orientation/resolution support with auto-adjusting of joystick direction;
Fast access directory tree with expansion of virtual disks and autoloading of individual files from within virtual disks;
Full save/load emulator state support;
Live adjustment of user preferences, including video color controls, speed, etc - see the effects as you make them;
Keypad to C64 Keyboard mapping ;
Video (VIC) emulation: Very fast Line-based emulation, all display modes, sprites with collisions/priorities, DMA cycles, open borders, all $d011/$d016 effects;
Sound (SID) emulation: Real-time digital emulation (16 bit, 44.1kHz), including filters;
Full 6510 emulation: All undocumented opcodes, 100% correct decimal mode, instruction/cycle exact emulation;
Supports advanced programming tricks like FLI, FLD, DYCP, open borders, multiplexed sprites, timing dependent decoders, fast loaders etc. and
True 1541 emulation for exact-sector access (Allows many copyprotected games to run).