The A64 Package  

				  or,

			 There and Back Again.


							by Sean Flanigan.


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   When I became the owner of an Amiga 500, I thought my 8-bit computing days
  were over. Never again would I revert to the all-blue screen of my
  Commodore 64, with its prehistoric version of Basic and the slowest disk
  drive in the known universe, the 1541.

   However, one day as I perused my catalogue of Fish disks, I noticed a
  program on disk 379 called 'The A64 Package'. Because of the cost of
  expanding a computer system, few people can afford more than one computer,
  but software emulations of computers at reasonable prices make it possible
  to own several 'virtual computers' and fit them all on one desk.
  For this reason, I always have an interest in emulators, and the
  opportunity to try one out for the cost of a disk was welcome.

   To skip ahead of myself a bit, I later obtained version 1.01n (Fish 379
  has v1.00n) of A64, and by now it should be on one of the Utility disks
  available from Megadisc. This review describes the later version.



		INITIAL IMPRESSIONS AND GRIPES


   Opening A64's drawer on the distribution disk reveals some detailed icons
  and several doc-files. A double-click on the Manual file (change the
  default tool to ':fullview', on your backup of course) brings up some
  well-written documentation which should enable anyone who has used a C64 to
  utilise A64 and its utilities, but it wouldn't hurt to look at the ReadMe
  in the root directory first.

   After following the instructions to get A64 working, you are presented
  with the blue and blue screen of a C64 - almost. The first line of the
  screen mentions A64 and Questronix rather than Commodore.  This difference
  is basically unimportant, but it serves as a reminder that A64 is missing
  some of the C64's most important memory locations.  To fix this, you can
  follow some detailed instructions in the Manual which explain how to
  install the C64's ROMs, but if you haven't got the A64 hardware you're on
  your own. You could try making a null-modem cable, but A64 is not much
  more expensive, and involves far less work.

   To exit A64, you have to hit both 'Alt' keys at once. This puts you into
  A64 Prefs and starts the Amiga working again. (Entering A64 pauses all
  other Amiga processes, despite what the manual implies about the way A64
  multitasks.) A64 Prefs lets you reduce the number of colours used and
  change various settings. These options can affect emulation speed and
  compatibility to a large degree, so it pays to become familiar with them.

   A number of menu items in A64 Prefs have keyboard shortcuts, but these
  shortcuts are poorly done. For instance RightAmiga-X allows you to exit
  Prefs and return to A64, but the 'Are you sure' requester which appears
  will not respond to the keyboard at all (unless you use the arrow keys in
  conjunction with Amiga keys - this works out to be more trouble than
  hunting up the mouse.)

   The utilities included with the A64 Package are mostly intended to be used
  in conjunction with the A64 hardware. The utilities which transfer files
  from 64 disks to Amiga devices work, except for a single bug which can be
  avoided (a Guru if you forget!), but they provide no wildcard support, and
  to transfer an entire disk to AmigaDOS generally requires a lot of typing
  and two or more CLIs, one for transfer commands, another to display a list
  of the files to be transferred.



			  COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS


   I mentioned above that A64 is missing the C64's ROMs. They comprise 16K
  of the C64's 64K, so a quarter of the C64's memory is missing. (To think
  that it used to be possible to fit an operating system and a Basic
  interpreter into 16K!) If the ROMs are not installed, A64 tends to be
  highly annoying, giving its equivalent of a Guru Meditation regularly, but
  fortunately it is not as destructive to unsaved work as the real thing. A
  majority of the C64 programs I tested refused to work without the ROMs, as
  did Basic's WAIT command.

   After installing the ROMs, some programs still wouldn't work, for instance
  'Impossible Mission', which loaded normally and displayed the graphics
  correctly, but froze when the game proper should have started. 'Raid Over
  Moscow' worked to some extent but whenever the graphics mode changed, the
  screen changed to garbage. The only way to rectify this problem seemed to
  be to change the number of colours A64 displayed, every time the screen
  changed!

   A64's shortcomings are most evident in games, which usually use sound (not
  yet emulated), and often use fast loaders, most of which A64 will never be
  able to handle. It is possible to use fast loading programs if you
  'freeze' the running program on a real C64 with a 'Freeze Frame' type
  cartridge.

   A64 fully supports C64 disk drives and printers except for fast loading.
  To read or write C64 disks you need the A64 interface and a C64 disk drive.
  A64 supports Amiga drives/devices for simple reads and writes, but in the
  current version reading from Amiga devices is very slow. A64 also supports
  Amiga modems for C64 terminal programs, but according to the manual this
  aspect needs more work.



			     UNSUPPORTED


   A64's largest problems are sprites, which flicker badly, and the absence
  of sound.

   The C64's cartridge, cassette and user ports are not useable with A64,
  simply because the Amiga has none of them.

   I'm not sure whether Amiga drives are physically capable of reading the
  C64's brand of 3.5" disks (i.e. 1581 format), but at any rate, this has
  not yet been implemented. A64 does not emulate 1750 RAM expansion for the
  C64 either.



			     GENERALITIES


   Despite the above complaints I liked A64, and have not regretted becoming
  a registered owner. Not too many weeks after posting off an international
  money order for $US30.00, I received the latest version of A64 as mentioned
  above, and the A64 hardware interface.

   If your software for the C64 consists entirely of games, then the current
  version of A64 probably won't be of much use to you, because games often
  use complicated methods of graphic generation, which A64 will handle
  slowly, if at all. Games programmers usually need to take an aged computer
  to its limits, and the C64 is about nine years old.  Unfortunately, A64
  (and in some cases the Amiga) has trouble emulating near those limits, and
  most 'modern' C64 games are a write-off. Try a second-hand C64.

   The applications programs and utilities I tried worked well while I had
  access to a C64 drive. When the drive had to return to its owner, most of
  my copiers and disk utilities became useless, but the applications didn't
  give much trouble, unless I used unimplemented disk functions on Amiga
  devices: deleting AmigaDOS files with the methods used by a C64 for
  instance. According to the manual, GEOS, the C64's attempt at 'emulating'
  the Amiga, doesn't work with A64 because of its fast loader. Questronix
  plan to emulate some fast loaders including the one used by GEOS in future
  revisions. The speed of loading from Amiga devices is expected to be
  greatly increased also.

   Someone who has owned a Commodore 64 previously and liked (or just
  understood!) the way it operated will probably find a use for A64, with or
  without the permanent use of a C64 drive. The interface makes transferring
  text files to the Amiga easy, and one of the utility programs can convert a
  C64 text file to an Amiga text file. And for someone like me who cannot
  fathom Amiga programming, A64 is perfect for testing programs written with
  Matt Dillon's cross-assembler 'DASM'.



			     CONCLUSION


   As it is at the moment, A64 is quite useable and useful, but a number of
  aspects could be improved.  If you think you might have a use for A64, give
  it a try. I for one would like to see the improvements which are planned
  for A64, so if you use it, I hope you will become a registered owner. If
  Questronix receives enough support, The A64 Package could become a very
  useful set of programs, and A64 a good virtual computer.



   The license fee for A64 is currently $US25.00. Postage of the interface
  to Australia is $5.00, and the adapter-cable for the A1000 costs $20.00.


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