The Versatile Commodore 8-bit Emulator

The VICE and the Project X64

The VICE is an advanced successor of X64, after merged with the XCBM and eventually reformed into the VICE project. It provides with completely different implementation of the emulation, yet providing the comfort of user interface you're familiar with.

The Vice in under constand change. Anyone interested in developing or porting the VICE further is welcome. Please contact us to avoid doing something that someone else has done already. (-:

Last updated: 27 09 1996

Fig 1: The Sun64 Workstation

Index

Description
News
Development Information
Distribution
VICE Source Code
ROM Images
Games, games, games, ...
Manuals
Copyright
Pictures
Other Emulators
Contacts

Description

VICE -- The Versatile Commodore Emulator and Simulator

VICE is the one and only Versatile Commodore 8-bit Emulator. (*) It provides you with complete emulation of the 6502/6510/7501/8500/8502 CPU as well as the Zilog Z80B, both with undocumented opcodes and single-step capability. The 6510 Simulator provided with graphical user interface can even be used not dependending on any specific machine.

Easy to use built-in Machine Language Monitor allows one to freeze and save, study, re-run, and debug ML programs on any of the machines emulated. Both extensive documentation and on-line help are provided to support anyone learning or using the 6510 Machine Language.
The documentation is also available separately, and it's worth getting no matter whether you actually use the VICE or some other emulators.

VICE is targeted for C64 enthusiasts and programmers. It's also suitable for the average user of earlier released C64 emulators like C64S, PC64, or X64. Tools are provided to convert files from other emulators' unsupported file formats to the supported ones.

Unlimited number of emulator processes can be run independent of each other on any Unix or Linux system with XLib and color palette support.

--
(*) Note: If trying to acronymize the full name, you'll notice it actually would result in something like "VCES". However, for several reasons the official name is VICE, nevertheless...

News

The VICE 0.11 released!

Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 The VICE should now be found on the following sites: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/system/Emulators frodo.hiof.no /pub/c64/emulator ftp.giga.or.at /pub/c64/emulators/unix The ROMs are uploaded to each of them, too.

The VICE Release 0.11 features...

Much higher compatibility (brand new interrupt code by Andre),
2.3 times faster CPU emulation (not for xc128), True shared RAM in the C128 MMU.
More precise CPU emulation
more VIC-II effects supported,
much more accurate VIC-II timing (bad lines, sprite cycles),
faster sprite-sprite collisions,
important bug fixes (including the keyboard and joystick),
direct T64/D64 image handling. (T64 in x64 and x128 only)
C-1541 emulation improvements
Some new VDC features (character height, screen size, rough implementation of the hires mode)

Now available on your FTP provider. (:

More to come... on VICE 0.12

SID support,
Pop-up menus,
disk errors

Development Information

Overview

The VICE is a versatile Commodore emulator for X-Window System on Unix.
It has been successfully tested on Linux with XFree 2.1,
Sunos 4.1.2 and 4.1.3 with X11R5 and Openwindows 3.0,
SunOS 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 with Openwindows 3.2,
Ultrix 4.3, HP-UX 8.0, ConvexOS with X11R5,
SCO ODT 3.0, IRIX 5.1.1.2 and even on AIX 2.1 with X11R3.
It also compiles on HP-UX and Amiga Linux without major problems.

Sun64, the Sun specific version is available on X64-0.3.1, and it runs on SunOS 5.4 (Solaris 2.4) and earlier only. It's not available for SunOS 5.5.

Status

The VICE distribution files are available on the traditional FTP sites (ftp.funet.fi, frodo.hiof.no, etc.). See below.

All new ideas, information, documents, bug reports, pathes and even new developers are welcome any time. Current sources are available on request.

VICE Compability

We want to encourage you sending any success/unsuccess reports with XC64. We need this quite a lot...

Details on the Video Emulations

The VICE 0.11.0 provides complete line-based raster emulation for all the machines emulated. This means that most of the raster effects will be emulated correctly (eg. multiplexed sprites, splitscreens, DYCP etc.), while the ones which need exact timing and horizontal raster emulation won't.

The following features of the VIC-II chip are emulated in xc64 and xc128:

- all video modes:

- Normal, Multicolor and Extended Color Text Modes;
- Hires and Multicolor Bitmap Modes;


- complete sprite emulation:

- multicolor and hires sprites;
- X and Y size doubling;
- sprite-sprite and sprite-background collision registers and interrupts;


- miscellaneous features:

- 38/40 column and 24/25 line modes;
- X and Y smooth scroll registers;
- open vertical borders;
- blank mode;
- raster interrupts.


The VDC emulation supports the following in xc128:

- 80x25 Text Mode;
- Text attributes: Flash, Underline, Reverse.


The VIC-I emulation supports the following in xvic:

- Normal Text Mode;
- Variable screen horizontal size.


The CRTC emulation supports the following in xpet:

- 40x25 (3032, 4032) and 80x25 (8032) Text Modes -- monochrome, obviously ;).

VICE Developers

List of people who have most notably involved in the development of the VICE emulator.

If you have any suggestions or want the most recent sources for making further improvements, mail me - jopi@stekt.oulu.fi.

VICE documents

• Commodore Platform Documents
• Full description of the 6510 instruction set in bare ASCII.

• André's VICE Page

• VICE evaluation query.

  VICE V0.11 PL 0

  Released: 31 July 1996
  • VICE 0.10.0 Linux Software Map entry.
  • VICE 0.11.0 Announce.
  • README.
  • Vice FAQ.
  • The VICE Programmers Revenge Guide.
  • History.
  • RAM format draft (Still only a suggestion).

  VICE V0.10 PL 0

  • VICE 0.10.0 Linux Software Map entry.
  • VICE 0.10.0 Announce.
  • README.

Documents wanted

Data sheet and programming information on CSG chips.
Any deviations from the CPU instruction set documented/used here.
*exact* description of VIC-20 I/O duplicates between $9000-$93FF
All existing deviations from the standard ROMs (*any* device)
(full) 1541 and 1571 memory maps
C128 Programmers Reference Guide, MPS/MOS/CSG Data sheets or books, and disk drive books.
More Disk Drive info

Distribution

VICE Source Code

The VICE and petcat sources are available on the following FTP sites and their mirrors.
Note: The newest version (or any of them) is not necessarily on each of these sites.

Availability Information updated Sat Apr 27 11:58:14 EET DST 1996

• sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/system/Emulators (primary site)
• ftp.giga.or.at /pub/cbm/emulation/unix/
• frodo.hiof.no /pub/c64/emulator (site unreachable)
• ftp.funet.fi /pub/cbm/c64/emulation (sunsite mirror)
• x2ftp.oulu.fi /pub/unix/emulators/

• Alpha sources Warning, this is alpha (i.e. you are supposed to be able to patch it yourself where needed). Do not redistribute.

In case you don't know what '.tar.gz' stands for, try

gzcat vice-*.tar.gz | tar xvf -

ROM Images

ROMs from another emulators are usually invalid.

It may be possible to get the ROMs on some FTP site though. I.e. roms.zip on frodo.hiof.no in emulator directory, or firmware/ on ftp.funet.fi. Your mileage may vary.
Note: VICE 64 does NOT run JiffyDOS, or other third-party products.

Games, games, games, ...

• The High Voltage CD-ROM by darren
• arnold.hiof.no
• the sharks

  Game Manuals

• The C64 Cheats (www.jyu.fi)
• Project 64 (ourworld.compuserve.com)

  Manuals

  Memory maps for most CBM machines and peripherals and some other documents are available via ftp.
  • x2ftp.oulu.fi /pub/cbm/maps
  • ftp.funet.fi /pub/cbm/maps (mirror)
  • ftp.funet.fi /pub/cbm/documents
  • x2ftp.oulu.fi /pub/cbm/docs

  Do upload yours if you have better ones.

  There are also several Commodore related WWW sites around, with a wide variety of information. Just take a look.

Copyright

The VICE is copyrighted to Teemu Rantanen, Jarkko Sonninen,
Jouko Valta, Ettore Perazzoli and Andre Fachat.

Mac port information not verified yet.

VICE is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

VICE is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

Pictures

VICE XC64 Workbench .
VICE XC128
VICE Workbench - the family portrait


Picture of osi with Sun64 Emulator running on stekt.
One sample screen
Sample SX-64 screen
Uuno Turhapuro Intro 1
Uuno Turhapuro Intro 2
Zone 4
A Bad Joke
Digital Excess
Sample page printed from petlp.

Other Emulators

• GEOS Warp Emulator
• C64 Emulators Page
• PC64, the best 64 emulator for MS-Windows compatibles.
• Win64 Beta -- a newcomer to conquer the market...

• ALE C64 for DOS/Linux PC
• ALE Binaries on ftp://majestix.av.rwth-aachen.de/pub/alec64/

• Tricks with x64
• MS-DOS based emulators (www.adam.com.au)
• C64 Emulators for PC (aol.com) provides quite extensive description on each emulator.

• Emulators page by Blueberry Design (Nice looking page, but not exactly up-to-date.)

• ShinobiZ's Emulator Page (in French)

• Marat Fayzullin's page on Computers and Emulators

Contacts

In case of any problems you need the answer quicly, try to reach the programmers via mail if possible before asking it trough the news, since newsfeed will cause an additional delay of about couple of days generally.

        General problems:  (Video emulation, Maintainer)
            Ettore Perazzoli        (ettore@comm2000.it)
				    (vice@x2ftp.oulu.fi)

        PET emulation:
            André Fachat	    (a.fachat@physik.tu-chemnitz.de)