chowg@ecf.UUCP (11/05/87)
I'm a Commodore 64 user who plans to upgrade to an Amiga. Recently my
interest was piqued when I heard about a C-64 software emulator planned
for the Amiga, which would also allow you to connect a 1541 disk drive
to the Amiga and use 64 programs. Does anyone have any information about
this? In particular, would the Amiga be faster/slower/the same when
running C-64 programs? Thanks for any information.
--
CSNET, UUCP: chowg@ecf.toronto.edu | Gordon Chow |
BITNET: chowg@ecf.UTORONTO | Dept. of Metallurgy & Materials |
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USENET: {linus,ihnp4,allegra,decvax,floyd}!utcsri!ecf!chowg | Ontario, Canada |harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) (11/11/87)
In article <366@mv03.ecf.toronto.edu>, chowg@ecf.UUCP writes: > I'm a Commodore 64 user who plans to upgrade to an Amiga. Recently my > interest was piqued when I heard about a C-64 software emulator planned > for the Amiga, which would also allow you to connect a 1541 disk drive > to the Amiga and use 64 programs. Does anyone have any information about > this? I have in front of me the "The Amiga Sentry" magazine, which I never saw before until COMDEX. They reviewed the GO-64 emulator. The company is: Software Insight Systems 16E International Drive East Granby, CT. 06026 (203) 653-4589 Price: $129.00 retail I was in a Commodore store today, and saw the product box laying there, so I guess it isn't vaperware. > In particular, would the Amiga be faster/slower/the same when > running C-64 programs? Thanks for any information. The article said BASIC programs run 90% to 100% of native speed. Hope this helps. -- Work: Computer Consoles Inc. (CCI), Advanced Development Group (ADG) Irvine, CA (RISCy business! Home of the CCI POWER 6/32) UUCP: uunet!ccicpg!harald
fetrow@entropy.ms.washington.edu (David Fetrow) (11/12/87)
I spent an hour or two with a C64 owner (I'm an ex-64 owner) who tried out
a variety of stuff using the afformentioned emulator. BASIC stuff generally
ran quite well, music programs ran mostly but tended to be a little slow,
most of the clever display hacks ran. We didn't have much luck with PaperClip
(which has "dongle" copy protection). The test machine was a stock Amiga 500.
We were using a 1571 drive with the Amiga adapter. It was acting just like
a standard 1541.
There are a couple clever bits: you can save a C64 file on the Amiga disks
which speeds loads and saves by quite a bit and there was a memory extension
feature (we didn't test that).
As a general rule the ultraclever stuff was less likely to run than the
straight-ahead stuff but that's the usual case for emulators isn't it?
--
-Dave Fetrow-
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7833117@UWAVM :BITNETlishka@uwslh.UUCP (Christopher Lishka) (11/13/87)
In article <4136@ccicpg.UUCP> harald@ccicpg.UUCP ( Harald Milne) writes: >In article <366@mv03.ecf.toronto.edu>, chowg@ecf.UUCP writes: >> [chowg@ecf.UUCP asks a general question about GO-64, i.e. what it is like] > > Price: $129.00 retail ^---------------Price indicated by Mr. Milne for GO-64 (from a magazine add). Whoa! Isn't a c64 about that cheap these days? Seems pretty wierd to buy a program which emulates a machine which is about the same price. Now *if* the emulator runs the software better or faster, I can see paying the money for it, but otherwise, why not just get the machine. >I was in a Commodore store today, and saw the product box laying there, >so I guess it isn't vaperware. My friend has being fooling around with a copy recently, and it didn't look like vaporware... ;-) >> In particular, would the Amiga be faster/slower/the same when >> running C-64 programs? Thanks for any information. > > The article said BASIC programs run 90% to 100% of native speed. Hmmmmmm...my friend (same as above) and I did a very informal test about a week and a half ago. He had written a quick "for i=1 to 20000" loop and tested it with GO-64. Since he thought it ran fairly slow (and because his 64 recently fried some chips) he called me up, read me the program verbatim over the phone, I typed it into my c64, and timed the loop. Well, low and behold, after we compared figures (sorry, it was too long ago to remember the times), we found that the GO-64 program running on his machine (which has a 68010 in it, if that matters) barely ran at 50% of the speed of my c64. I know, I know, not a very scientific test, but still our figures were not quite the 90% to 100% that appears above. Hmmmmm.... Furthermore, he has run programs on GO-64 written in compiled BASIC by himself and another friend, and found really strange results. He mentioned some wierd effects with colors not being updated that frequently. Now, I don't want this to reflect badly on GO-64 (it is afterall, an emulator, and these facts do seem a little sketchy ;-), but I would definitely run this program through all its paces before spending $129 on it to replace your c64. Personally, because it is an emulator, I don't think it will ever run as well as a c64 (there was some discussion of this in articles long past on in this newsgroup). So, why not just buy a c64? But those are just mine and my cockatiels' opinions... -Chris -- Chris Lishka /lishka@uwslh.uucp Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene <-lishka%uwslh.uucp@rsch.wisc.edu "What, me, serious? Get real!" \{seismo, harvard,topaz,...}!uwvax!uwslh!lishka