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Handhelds Operating Systems Software Hardware

Commodore 64 Emulator For Your Palm Pilot 191

Posted by timothy from the needs-aztek dept.
Ridgelift writes "PDALive's got an article on a port of Frodo, the free Commodore 64 Emulator for your Palm Pilot. I can't wait to get this running so I can play M.U.L.E. on the road!" Update: 12/01 02:41 GMT by T : An anonymous reader writes "I thought I should point out that there's also a really great Atari ST emulator for Palm called 'CaSTaway.' You can find it here. It's free and released under GPL :)"
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Commodore 64 Emulator For Your Palm Pilot More

Commodore 64 Emulator For Your Palm Pilot

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  • Pocketses (Score:4, Funny)

    by Raindance ( 680694 ) * <johnsonmxNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:23PM (#7594421) Homepage Journal
    "... Frodo, the free Commodore 64 Emulator for your Palm Pilot"

    Lends a new meaning to 'What hass it gots in its pocketses??'

    RD

  • Not bad, but... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:24PM (#7594423) Homepage
    I'd like an Apple II emulator for my Palm Pilot so I can play Oregon Trail on long road trips and get myself thinking bad thoughts.

  • Addictive arcade games for the palm at last? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Circuit Breaker ( 114482 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:25PM (#7594430)
    I still play (emulated) C64 games on my PC - they're lots of fun, and are very addictive, though somewhat lacking in the graphics department.

    I find it strange that the Palm, and generally all modern PDAs and cell phones have 20 times as much power as the old C64 in every measurement, yet most of the games suck.

  • Emulators all around... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <revaaron AT hotmail DOT com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:28PM (#7594449) Homepage
    What is the big deal about this? It is somewhat of note on PalmOS, where creating emulators is a lot harder than on WinCE or Linux, because of POS's architecture.

    On WinCE (PocketPCs) and Linux PDAs, there are a ton of good emulators, and for a number of systems, more than one. Off the top of my head, i know I've used on WinCE: GameBoy, SNES, NES, MAME, C64, and NeoGeo.

    While there aren't as many, there certainly are a handful of emulators for PalmOS, although I have only used the good Liberty GB emu.

    So why post this? Should we start posting when any PalmOS package is released, like it is some big event? It may be of interest if it were the first emulator for PalmOS, or the fist C64 emulator for a PDA- but it isn't. And it certainly is not anything exceptional or of note, although my kudos goes to the developer, it is good to see people pushing the limits of PalmOS 5 and under.
    • Well, if there are a lot of emulators for WinCE, and a few for Palm, this would make a c64 emulator for Palm more newsworthy than another one for wince.

      And following your argumentation: Im really sick about all those apache, samba, linux kernel new posts, too. Been there done that. Who cares?
      Dont agree?
      But its the same reasoning...
      • Yes, like I said myself, any new PalmOS emulator is a little bit more notable than one for WinCE or Linux PDAs, where porting or writing an emulator is a lot easier, on account of Linux and WinCE being "real OSes."

        It's not quite the same reasoning. By your interpretation of what I said, it would be appropriate and expected for Slashdot to post for every new software package released for a PDA...

        Notes about new releases for Linux or Apache are expected due to the nature of this community. I personally am
      • >if there are a lot of emulators for WinCE, and a few for Palm, this would make a c64 emulator for Palm more newsworthy than another one for wince.

        Not that newsworthy. Think about all the other stories (check out any tech news site) passed over for this one. Technically its cool, but how about putting it in Developers because it was a programming challange.

        >Im really sick about all those apache, samba, linux kernel new posts, too. Been there done that.

        >Dont agree?

        Then what? Shut up? Why do

    • Re:Emulators all around... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Walt Dismal ( 534799 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:56PM (#7594602)
      Remember decades ago, back around 2004, when they only had Pentium 4s? Well, now that we have portable Beowolf clusters providing 5 gigateraflops running in our communicator implants, we can look back and laugh. Heck, now I have so much computing power embedded in my sinuses I can go back in time and post on Slashdot in 2003, before it was bought by AOL.
      • I'd be kinda scared of getting ANY computing power embedded in my sinusses - that could really fucking hurt if a blob of solder went the wrong way!
        • Don't worry. It's carbon-tube-based nanologic. Not only does it compute, it filters the air, too. My big problem is the green LEDs in my nose. When they light up, it looks like pulsing boogers. Life here in 2053 isn't always a picnic, yanno.
          • pulsing boogers sound cool - kinda like the logical end result of clubbers waving those stupid glowing wiggly sticks around back in the days of acid and alcohol before this E stuff came along. I assume in 2053 your onto G or H?
            • No, G and H are obsolete. Now we're up to T, U, and V. But the Apple iBrain direct brain stimulator is what everybody uses now. The only thing is, those wires running up your nose are such a pain, they always fall out while you're dancing.
              • its always the supplimentary info thats most revealing. The future was sounding great until you revealed they still have DANCING!!! Ever since that last combination of me, alcohol, 'crazy in love' and a beyonce impression I've gone dance cold turkey.

                I even gave my dancemat PS2 controllers to my cousin!
            • I imagine they're using A and B... I think the drug alphabet goes backwards. After all, folks have been using H, M, and O for far longer than E. We've had H for the last hundred and some [a1b2c3.com] years, M for even longer, and O has been a part of human evolution since time immemorial...

    • bad platforms make for good business (Score:5, Interesting)

      by penguin7of9 ( 697383 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:39PM (#7594813)
      Let's make a table:

      Handheld Platform: Porting Effort

      Linux/X11 (handhelds.org, Yopy): trivial (some layout changes)

      Linux-QPE (Zaurus): modest (reuse libraries, rewrite GUI)

      PocketPC: significant (lots of API limitations relative to XP)

      PalmOS: extreme (can't write all-native apps, memory limits, no file system, no resizeable windows, no layout manager, no multitasking, no standard APIs).

      Ironic, isn't it, that popularity is inversely proportional to difficulty of software development? Of course, that's a pretty general rule.

      Now, why is that? Well, look at this news item. When someone ports a Commodore 64 emulator to a Linux/X11 handheld, it's not news because it's so trivial. When someone ports it to PalmOS, it's big news. I once ported a web browser to a Linux/X11 handheld, and that wasn't news either. You still can't get anything of comparable quality for PalmOS, and so every junky PalmOS web browser is a news item.

      Bad OS platforms make for good press, lots of business opportunities, and lots of PR. Programmers feel proud when they have mastered a bad platform and managed to create the tiniest app for a bad platform. That's why PalmOS and Windows XP keep winning in the market. What to do about it, I don't know.

      • Re:bad platforms make for good business (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <revaaron AT hotmail DOT com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @09:23PM (#7595397) Homepage
        I'd put Linux/QPE and WinCE in the same category, modest. There are libraries for WinCE that make it a lot easier, SDL and some partial POSIX compat libraries that make apps a ton easier to port. Even without this, porting isn't all that bad, depending on what the original depended on. Naturally, if it is heavy into OpenGL or DirectX it'll be more work- but then again, if you had an OpenGL-based emulator [1] for Linux, it'd be a lot more than "trivial" work to port it to a Linux PDA, whether it targets Qtopia or X11.

        A big consideration in porting certain types of apps to Linux or WinCE PDAs is the lack of an FPU, which very often pushes the app out of trivial into moderate, even if you're using X11 or SDL on the PDA. There are always the cheerleaders who like to praise the Zaurus unduly, magnifying the disapointment in the platform that much more.

        To an extent, I agree with your assessment about bad platform and PR; if your platform sucks, every "feature," whether it's an actual feature or a fix, seems like a leap for mankind. But, in this case, I really rather doubt it is the case- more likely someone submitted the story, and timothy being relatively ignorant of what PDAs can do these days, thought it was cool and newsworthy. It is certainly cool, but emulation isn't new on PalmOS- at the very least, there are GB, NES, C64, Apple2, and perhaps some others.

        I dunno, it's Slashdot, and this kind of thing should be expected. But then again, it is also expected that some schmuck like me will whine about it, share the truth and their worthless opinion with everyone else... :D

        [1] Sounds silly for a 2D emulator to use OpenGL, but it's sometimes an easy way to blit yer bits...

      • Bad OS platforms make for good press, lots of business opportunities, and lots of PR. Programmers feel proud when they have mastered a bad platform and managed to create the tiniest app for a bad platform. That's why PalmOS and Windows XP keep winning in the market. What to do about it, I don't know.

        No, I think you're missing an important point here. Those "Bad OS's" generally have to run on weaker hardware. Linux can't run on hardware as weak as the Palm's, and can barely run on Windows CE grade handhel

        • No, I think you're missing an important point here. Those "Bad OS's" generally have to run on weaker hardware. Linux can't run on hardware as weak as the Palm's, and can barely run on Windows CE grade handhelds

          Given the history of UNIX and Linux, that is just an idiotic statement. Both UNIX and Linux run comfortably on hardware that is slower than the original 68k Palm, including X11 even; that's what workstation vendors used to ship.

          The current PalmOS 5 handhelds have 175MHz to 400MHz RISC processors a
          • As operating systems go, WindowsCE and PalmOS have no advantages over Linux/X11 in terms of resource usage or performance.

            That's bunk, man.

            The key to WinCE or PalmOS is that it leaves out the stuff you may not need, but allowing you to add it on later if you need it. I can always install X11 on WinCE if I want (though, not on PalmOS IIRC), but I can't just the functionality that X11 provides which I just don't need on my PDA. Certainly, there are times where having remote display is useful on my PDA, b
        • No, I think you're missing an important point here. Those "Bad OS's" generally have to run on weaker hardware. Linux can't run on hardware as weak as the Palm's, and can barely run on Windows CE grade handhelds (I've tried it, it's painful).

          Linux *can* and does run on some PalmOS hardware. ucLinux ran on some old PalmOS units, 16 MHz DragonBalls. But, it wasn't "real" Linux. A lot of the modern PalmOS units have the same hardware as any Linux or WinCE PDA: 200-400 MHz ARM CPU, 30-200 MHz bus, 16-128 MB RA
    • What is the big deal about this? It is somewhat of note on PalmOS, where creating emulators is a lot harder than on WinCE or Linux, because of POS's architecture.

      While there aren't as many, there certainly are a handful of emulators for PalmOS, although I have only used the good Liberty GB emu.

      there probably isn't any reason to post this at all - of course, getting emulators up and running these days on PalmOS is a lot easier than the old 68k days (yay, someone remembers Liberty) :P we had a nightmare of
      • Palm OS, Pocket PC, Smartphone and Symbian Series 60 - using our SHARK development kit. gone are the days of dealing with a single operating system.

        Same for me, though I am taking a different approach, using Squeak Smalltalk, which is a bytecode-compiled + virtual machine language which runs on just about any platform, desktop and PDA, with one huge exception- PalmOS. But I am working to remedy that, now that here are some tricks around PalmOS's limitation...

        Not only do I remember Liberty, but I still us
    • >>So why post this?

      Because some of us find this interesting. "News for Geeks" and all that. Many of us have very fond memories of the C64 (see here [slashdot.org]) and are appreciative of this article.
      Besides, sludging my arse back into work after a 4-day weekend, this news actually brightened my morning a bit and gave me a new toy to look forward to.

  • All right! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:29PM (#7594452) Homepage
    Frodo is a highly portable program and currently has versions for Windows, Mac, Linux/Unix, Playstation, Dreamcast and Symbian telephones to mention just a few.

    You know, I never felt my Dreamcast was fully functional unless I could program BASIC on it.

    Move over, Soul Calibur, GOTO's coming!

  • Unreal (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JoeCommodore ( 567479 ) <larry@portcommodore.com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:30PM (#7594460) Homepage
    Problem with most emulators is they aren't as much fun as the real thing (all emulated sound, display, speed, controllers, keyboard). I believe all fall short by not emulating paddles.

    Most of my Commodore 64 stuff I do uses special utility cartridges, and a floppy disk drive or two. Without a true keyboard it limits it more.

    Though playing some games like the atarisoft, Legacy of the ancients or Fort Apacalypse does hold some appeal.

    • Problem with most emulators is they aren't as much fun as the real thing (all emulated sound, display, speed, controllers, keyboard). I believe all fall short by not emulating paddles.

      Most of my Commodore 64 stuff I do uses special utility cartridges, and a floppy disk drive or two. Without a true keyboard it limits it more.

      That's why I wish there were more emulators for the Sharp Zaurus [myzaurus.com]. The built-in keyboard makes a huge difference, and would be perfect for playing the old Ultima games!

      • Re:Unreal (Score:4, Informative)

        by FromWithin ( 627720 ) <mike@@@fromwithin...com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @08:17PM (#7595059) Homepage

        That's why I wish there were more emulators for the Sharp Zaurus. The built-in keyboard makes a huge difference, and would be perfect for playing the old Ultima games!

        How many more do you want? There are loads of them [killefiz.de].

        Atari 400/800, PC, Atari ST, C64, Gameboy (orig/color/Advance), Mac, PalmPilot, MAME, MESS, ScummVM, SNES, TRS-80, Genesis, NES, Spectrum, TI85, Wonderswan, Amiga. If they're not at the link above then do a search of some Japanese zaurus sites.

        • Re:Unreal (Score:4, Informative)

          by robson ( 60067 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @08:59PM (#7595273)
          How many more do you want? There are loads of them.

          Yeah, I know, but there are all of these caveats. (I know, now I'm just whining.)

          For example, a bunch of the emulators require that you run X11 on your Zaurus. Crazy talk. I've never gotten any of the MAME ports to work. The only supported MAME port doesn't work on the 5x00 series. The GBA emulator is astonishingly slow. And, unfortunately, nobody's created (or ported) an Apple II emulator.

          So, yeah... there are a lot, but there are lots of things standing in the way.

  • Hope for all the "lost" files and obsolete formats (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @06:48PM (#7594564)
    Emulators like this are one reason why I am not so worried about retaining access to files in obsolete formats. As long as you carefully transfer old files and their corresponding applications to new storage media, you can hope that a emulator like this will give you access to otherwise lost data.

    Its not a perfect solution -- emulators don't support special hardware or obsolete storage equipment and not every machine gets an emulator.
    • > As long as you carefully transfer old files and their corresponding applications
      > to new storage media, you can hope that a emulator like this will give you access
      > to otherwise lost data.

      Hm, not always true. Imagine you wrote your letters with some C64 editing software
      (maybe under GEOS). Now, even if you were still to own the files, and the software,
      and the emulator to run it and view your files - how would that enable you to actually
      USE them? You still can't incorporate them into the Office
      • > As long as you carefully transfer old files and their corresponding applications
        > to new storage media, you can hope that a emulator like this will give you access
        > to otherwise lost data.

        Hm, not always true.....Now, even if you were still to own the files, and the software, and the emulator to run it and view your files - how would that enable you to actually USE them?.....

        Good point. This depends on the quality of the emulator. If the emulator supports any form of copy-paste, drag-n

  • On my phone (Score:5, Informative)

    by AchmedHabib ( 696882 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:19PM (#7594705)
    I've got it on my Nokia 7650 [nokia.com]. installed and run without any problems. Tested at couple of games and everything looked fine, even the old decompressing flashy screens. It sometimes however slowed a bit down when doing music.
    • I've got Frodo on my N-Gage, but now that MAME has also been released for it [harmonicode.com] I don't see myself playing it as much as I might like.
    • unfortunately, Frodo for PalmOS doesn't run on your Nokia 7650 - you most likely were playing with a version built for Symbian Series 60 :)
      • I wouldn't say it's "unfortunate" that the PalmOS version of Frodo doesn't run on Symbian Series 60 devices like his 7650 (and my 3650). After all, we've had Frodo for several months now (Q-Bert is fun on a cell phone, even one like mine with the buttons in a circle) and you guys are just now getting it? ;)

        I wonder whether this reinforces what some pundits have been saying of late - "smartphones are going to kill the PDA sector." I never thought to look at "who's getting the games first" though. And P

  • Nope. Not for me. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JK Master-Slave ( 727990 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:36PM (#7594792)
    The people who put out things like this need to think further about their target audience. People like me have PalmOS 3.0 devices running on 68K processors. The 'suits' who buy a new PalmOS device every year have the new thingies. But they're not the folks who will be interested in something like this.

    Oh well.

  • M.U.L.E. a no-go for Palm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) * <johnwhNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday November 30, 2003 @07:46PM (#7594859) Homepage
    Even if this works, how are they going to get four players going at the same time? M.U.L.E. can be played with three computer opponents, but the game's really at its best when played with at least three human participants.
    • how are they going to get four players going at the same time?

      The IR interface could be used...

    • Re:M.U.L.E. a no-go for Palm (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @11:47PM (#7596052) Journal
      Perhaps a Bluetooth/Wi-Fi multiplayer interface could be created? It'd be worth trying to play M.U.L.E. multiplayer on this thing.

      Actually, the Tapwave already uses Bluetooth for multiplayer games so this has already been done!

      • Hacking together a multiplayer interface for a game is one thing, but hacking it together in order to play a game in an emulator is something different. You'd probably have to put special code in the emulator for that. (Isn't Frodo open-source?)

        If you're going to go through all that, the question has to be asked, why not just re-implement the game? Use wireless to enable games with more than four players? I can just imagine everyone frantically pressing the scroll buttons/wheel to get their bids in on

  • Sound and many games! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Danathar ( 267989 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @08:08PM (#7594991) Journal
    Does the emulator support the C64's sound?

    And...

    The reason this is such a big deal is because the low resolution of the C64 looks just fine on a small screen. It looks like crap on a VGA monitor because most games of that era were designed with TV in mind. Many of those games looked better because the black line on every other scan line was a sort of "anti-aliasing" which made many of those games look nice.

    Also, there were MAJOR titles released for the C64 that would NEVER be writing for the Palm. Like the Ultima Series (up to Ultima 6...I think?).
  • "Frodo, the free Commodore 64 Emulator for your Palm Pilot. I can't wait to get this running so I can ..."

    ... play the old game of Stroker [lemon64.com].

    Never had a C64 myself, but saw this once on a friends computer and pissed myself laughing.

  • I want to run .. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Stavr0 ( 35032 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @08:56PM (#7595254) Homepage Journal
    Frodo C64 emulator for Palm Pilot
    ... on CoPilot emulator for Windows 9X
    ...... on a VMWare session for Linux

    Just because I can.

  • Good, now how about a port of Colem (the colecovision emulator)...this console would be perfect for a handheld...

    The colecovision had 16 colors, low quality sound (by todays standards), low resolution, and low rom sizes (16 to 32kbytes)...

    By comparison, the C= 64 had a hybrid Analog/Digital sound chip (SID), support for add-on hardware, paddles, joysticks, flight controllers, mice, and larger applications (180 to 320 kbytes)...

    The earlier game consoles just make more sense to emulate on a handheld...

  • In case this doesn't quench your nostalgic thirst. (Score:3, Informative)

    by gklinger ( 571901 ) on Sunday November 30, 2003 @11:19PM (#7595946)
    We've been discussing [cliesource.com] this emulator for a while over on ClieSource [cliesource.com]. It's not quite finished yet but so far, so good. The caveat is that it only runs on Palm OS 5.x devices and it requires a fairly robust CPU as well.

    If you're interested in emulation on Palm OS-based handhelds, you should learn the name Jeff Mitchell. He's the programmer behind XCade [codejedi.com] (an arcade emulator) and CaSTaway [codejedi.com] (an Atari ST emulator). Nifty stuff. Check them out.

  • Why Frodo? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 01, 2003 @03:31AM (#7596748)
    Why do people keep on porting Frodo? It's the only C64 emulator available for the GamePark 32, too.

    To be frank - it's rubbish. The quality of emulation is *far* lower than something like VICE, or CCS64, and this has it's consequences. As a rule, you have to find particular versions of software made for Frodo, because the majority of games out there simply won't load. With something like VICE I've never had a game that wouldn't load on it that wouldn't also fail to load on my real C64.

    Surely the superb VICE can't be too difficult to port?

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