Subject: COMP.EMULATORS.CBM: Emulation FAQ for Commodore 8bit Computers (2/4)
3. Questions & Answers
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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?
On the good side, the games are on plain .d64 files, and these
can be copied to your hard-drive and played on the emulator of
your choice.
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.
5. 'cos the software still rules :>
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
(note \ in above should be backslash)
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:
