Previously Rejected Commodore 64 Emulator Approved and Available on App Store

[OnaMacSince1989]

M.u.l.e.

Please, please, please offer M.U.L.E. !!!!!!!!!!

 

[Master Chief]

Seems like we good old Commodore developers will be making some money again from our old stuff

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Seriously **** the app store. With all there confusion and oh your time icon looks just like ours ********...... Im am so sick of apple and i am gunna come out and say it i am a fanboy. I seriously want to get rid of my iPhone as much as i love it its been the best phone ive ever had. But i want something that ACTUALLY HAS SERVICE! and everything doesnt either get rejected or crippled to wifi....

**** AT&T
**** Apple
**** iPhone.....


My god that was hard t say.......

Cry me a river.

 

[boxstboy]

Awesome! Where did I leave that machine language manual?

 

[Lynxpro]

Oh yes...that would be very cool indeed.
(side bar....I wish the guys who do the Amiga Forever emulator would do an Apple version...I've been asking for years but they say there isn't a big enough user base )

The Amiga Forever people must be smoking some good stuff to discount the iPhone market. They'd certainly sell more wares on it than on the Amiga Everywhere pipe dream platform. Plus, there's already been a conversion of the Amiga's - allegedly - best pinball game over to the iPhone.

Shadow of the Beast would rule, as would any other Psygnosis game brought out on the Amiga and the Atari ST back in the day. Of course, Sony owns Psygnosis so I doubt it'll happen. They've yet to release any of those games - except Lemmings - on the Sony PSP and PS3. It boggles the mind their [Sony's] ineptitude on cashing in on the retro scene, especially since they [Sony] employs the co-creator of the Amiga in SCEA's R&D department.

for the fool who says the C64 is a POC......nuff said ;-)

Sorry, but the C64 did not outperform the Atari 8-bit line despite debuting 3 years after. However, I'd say Commodore got its revenge since the C64 helped bury the console business and nearly Atari itself, plus they nabbed Jay Miner when they bought Amiga.

The real crime is that when the Tramiels bought Atari, in their ineptitude, they buried the Amy sound chip project. If you think the SID [or Paula] was a great audio chip, you would've forgotten about it had the Amy hit the market. It would've been an awesome addition to the ST [or the Amiga], the 8 bit line, and/or any of the consoles.

 

[358547]

..

 

[thecartoonguy]

This is great and all.. except we only get to emulate that piece of crap Commode-Door 64.

Give us a real computer of the era... the Atari 800! Superior in every way!

and then... i will kick all your asses at Bruce Lee. seriously, i ruled that game.

Ohhhh I forgot about the Atari 800. Good times

 

[Lynxpro]

It can't, unless the emulator author actually wrote their own proprietary bridge between BASIC and the iPhone's filesystem. I think the point is that Apple don't want to allow this for fear of it being the thin end of the wedge. Obviously there's no official system of precedent for the store, but there's a vague unofficial one forming through blogger outrage.

We all seem to be forgetting that Commodore BASIC - just like BASIC on the Apple II line - *is* Microsoft BASIC and while Commodore had the right to include it with each machine they sold, it is probably unclear if the current Commodore still holds such rights to transfer over to an Apple iPhone app; same goes for Apple's old license for BASIC which probably does not transfer to the iPhone either.

Almost all of the bundled BASICs on 8-bit computers were licensed from Microsoft [I think Commodore paid 5 cents to Microsoft per C64 sold] with the exception of Atari BASIC.

Good luck with that... There seems a pretty poor choice at the moment!
Definitely a step in the right direction, but i think i'll be avoiding for the moment until some of the better C64 titles appear... For me, that'll be IK+, Thing on a Spring, Monty Mole, Suicide Express, Raid on Bungling Bay etc, etc.. Not to mention having the ability to load up the old C64 demos... That would have to be a must too

I'd say any of the Epyx games of old like Impossible Mission. Granted, a port of Epyx's Electrocop - the sequel to the Impossible Mission series - from the Atari Lynx would look better on the iPhone.

I still miss the good ol' days of the Apple IIGS...a fantastic machine that kept perfect compatibility with the Apple // while introducing GS/OS, a system that was WAY ahead of any other similar initiatives by Atari and Commodore...not to mention that it had the best sound capabilities of any personal computer.

Sorry, but no. The only area the IIGS surpassed the Atari ST and the Amiga was in internal audio with the Ensoniq audio chip [and in running Apple // series software]. And that audio chip was not better than the Motorola DSP that was found in the Atari Falcon and the NeXT Cube. In no way was the IIGS's 65816 microprocessor up to any Motorola 680x0 processors found in the ST and Amiga lines. The graphics weren't up to par, it wasn't as fast, the GUI wasn't as good, and it didn't do desktop video, publishing, or MIDI as well as its two competitors. It also cost twice as much and still wasn't a Macintosh and that's why it died the ignoble death it did.

 

[boxstboy]

If there's something you're looking for (Please God give me MULE!) then it'll likely show up eventually.

OMG, I loved M.U.L.E.! If they had that, I'd buy it in a second! Mobile M.U.L.E.!!!

 

[thecartoonguy]

10 Print "is It Just Me Or Do The Games That Come With This App. Seem More Like Vic20 Than C64?";
20 Goto 10

List

Run

Thank you!! I was trying to remember what else it looked like. I could not remember the Vic20 to save my life.

 

[Darkroom]

Call me crazy, but I don't see how Commodore BASIC could be used to write malicious code!

These apps are sandboxed anyway......

my thoughts exactly

but as soon as they load up BC Quest For Tires they got a sale... and Jumpman...

 

[thecartoonguy]

Yes. You obviously never owned a C64

True C64 fans however can get the VICE emulator for Mac OSX and play with a Competition Pro USB stick. Now back to playing Last Ninja....

Snort... These kids today with their super fast high end graphic computers. In our day we had 5 1/4 disks and tape drives.

 

[knuster]

found a way to enable BASIC in commodore64 app.
it's real easy

1 enable full keyboard in Settings
2 Start a game, press the RESET key on the keyboard, voila, BASIC!

have fun!!

 

[Spades]

Apps have access to your address book and the internet. Sending your contacts to someone else is possible.

Oh yes. I remember the old STEALADDRESSBOOK keyword in Commodore BASIC. That one was a pain, especially because all it did was print an address on the screen with the instructions to hand copy your address book and mail it there. And remember when that one magazine published the virus program?

10 STEALADDRESSBOOK
20 GOTO 10

Man, that one DoSed the entire postal system!

But now the whole process can be automated!

 

[compuguy1088]

There is no way for Commodore BASIC to run malicious code in this emulator - it's a sandbox in a sandbox

I'de have to agree...to begin with, basic is, well, basic!

Let me clarify this. It can run "arbitrary BASIC code"... that you have to type in yourself since there's no way to save or load apps. So, it would be going pretty old-school like magazines publishing pages and pages of BASIC code you'd have to type in yourself... that is until you quit the app and would have to do it again next time you launched.

and as to the significance of the app itself. Even if you weren't born when the C64 was out, this opens the door to future emulators in the App Store -- something that wasn't really thought possible.

arn

Apparently, the basic interpreter was made an easter egg:

Me: Will it be possible to program the emulator from within the emulator?

Brian: Yes and no, as mentioned before, BASIC has been disabled due to the rules of App Store, “interpreters” are not permitted, but of course it is still in there, and it looks like several users already figured out how to enable it – though you will have no option to save your work yet.

http://copenhagencocoa.com/2009/09/06/interview-with-c64-designer/

 

[babyj]

Almost all of the bundled BASICs on 8-bit computers were licensed from Microsoft [I think Commodore paid 5 cents per C64 sold to Microsoft] with the exception of Atari BASIC.

The BASIC on Acorn computers (BBC Micro and Electron) was in house and was arguably the best available on 8-bit computers - the built in support for assembly language code was unique (as far as I'm aware).

 

[Stiksi]

I loved Winter Games and Summer Olympics. Oh, and a game called Raid over Moscow. I learned my Russian geography from the game b/c is showed Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad on the map.

I hope you've updated since then - 2 out of 3 of those cities haven't been called that in a long time! also wasn't Russia back then...

 

[gehrbox]

Wanted to clarify that The Woz wrote Apple BASIC which was later renamed "Integer BASIC" and was included on the early Apple II computers. The Microsoft licensed version was called "Applesoft BASIC" and didn't make into the ROMs until the IIplus.

We all seem to be forgetting that Commodore BASIC - just like BASIC on the Apple II line - *is* Microsoft BASIC

 

[Kadman]

The only thing holding me back from purchasing this is that there are no guarantees of any of the true classic games showing up for this. The included games just aren't anything to get excited about. If they release something like Jumpman, Raid Over Moscow, Summer Games, Ghosts n Goblins, StarLeague Baseball, Commando, or any true classics, I'll bite in a heartbeat.

 

[adiosjefe]

M.u.l.e

Come on M.U.L.E.....I loved M.U.L.E on the C64 (and Atari 800).

 

[iSee]

It's good to see that Apple and the developer reached a reasonable compromise. In truth, I think Apple is right in having the BASIC interpreter removed to prevent the execution of arbitrary code which could be a security concern. Hopefully, in the future, it won't take so long for these issues to be communicated and resolved.

Yep. All those Commodore Basic-based viruses, dormant for so long, would start circulating again. Oh the horror!

10 PRINT "ALL YOUR COMPUTER ARE BELONG TO ME!"
20 GOTO 10

 

[Mr. Gates]

Anybody remember an old game called Necromancer?

I know it was on the Atari 800 but not too sure about C64

 

[GoKyu]

Anybody remember an old game called Necromancer?

I know it was on the Atari 800 but not too sure about C64

I don't remember a title called Necromancer, but I do remember (and played when I got my C64 off eBay a few years ago), Neuromancer (from William Gibson/Interplay - this one BETTER be available for the iPhone!)

As I mentioned, I purchased a used C=64c (I had the original C=64 from '82 till '95 or so) off eBay a few years back, and I had kept a bunch of software, expecting to buy one again.

Kinda lame that it doesn't have access to the BASIC interpreter, but kinda cool that it's hidden and able to be found...Anyone remember "Hacker"?

I'm going to buy this right now...

 

[Mr. Gates]

...not the same game

I don't remember a title called Necromancer, but I do remember (and played when I got my C64 off eBay a few years ago), Neuromancer (from William Gibson/Interplay - this one BETTER be available for the iPhone!)

As I mentioned, I purchased a used C=64c (I had the original C=64 from '82 till '95 or so) off eBay a few years back, and I had kept a bunch of software, expecting to buy one again.

Kinda lame that it doesn't have access to the BASIC interpreter, but kinda cool that it's hidden and able to be found...Anyone remember "Hacker"?

I'm going to buy this right now...

That game looks pretty cool, but in the one I was refering to you are a wizard in the forest casting spells and engaging zombies and spirits.

 

[amiganut]

Give us a real computer of the era... the Atari 800! Superior in every way!

Better yet, how about an Amiga Emulation?