Commodore 64

frodo logo

frodo icon There are 2 Commodore 64 emulators for the Acorn, the most well known is the Acorn RISC OS port of Frodo and FrodoSC, the C64 emulator. It will also run D64 images. Frodo is compiler using the GNU C++ compiler, originally written by Christian Bauer and ported to the Acorn by Andreas Dehmel.

Andreas Dehmel
Am Schorn 18
82327 Tutzing
Germany

Elite running on FrodoSystem requirements are RISC OS 3, enough RAM for a 1376kB wimpslot and a lot of processing power. StrongARM is needed for 100% emulation speed with sound (Frodo), though it still runs on my A5000. StrongARM desperately needed for FrodoSC. Minimum spec A5000 (Frodo: 20-40% speed). The reason for the slowness, is that it is written in C++ , so for any real purpose it is Risc PC only. There is full sound emulation, even on A5000! Source code available from the superb Frodo homepage. It can be tricky getting Frodo to run, particularly if you're nor familiar with the C64 method of running programs, so I've written a quick step-by-step guide for how to get it running.

While Frodo runs in the desktop, the palette is incorrect in the faster 16 colour modes, I am grateful to Steve Robb, who has provided a palette file (as well as a load of screenshots) in order to get the correct C64 colours in jsut 16 colours. The screen shot above is of Elite, and the one below, is of the Last Ninja, both running under Frodo v4.1 on a RISC PC.

Frodo Speed Rating: ARM 3 - too slow, ARM 6 - Slow, ARM 7 - Slow, StrongARM - Perfect, StrongARMo - Perfect

Frodo screen shot

BreadBox64 There is a commercial C64 emulator from the German company Pulse Computer, who are now selling Denys Bogatz's C64 emulator, named BreadBox64 (after the C64's nick name - it looked like a breadbox!?!), this was last updated in January 1996, and although a lot faster than Frodo, does not run in the desktop environment. The demo seemes to have fairly decent sound emulation and runs the demos supplied with it admirably, unfortunately it seems there is no way to return to the desktop from inside the emulator. There is a demo version of BreadBox64, downloadable below.

[email protected]

Am Fröschlanger 15
83512 Wasserburg
Germany
Phone: +49 08071 52921

BreadBox64 Speed Rating: ARM 2 - Slow, ARM 250 - Perfect, ARM 3 - Perfect.

Emulators:
Frodo v4.1 (329Kb) ZIP archive
Frodo Homepage - superb page with loads of info
Frodo step-by-step guide (1Kb) Text file
Frodo Speedup tips by Steve Robb(1Kb) Text file
Frodo Screenshots & Palette file (98Kb) ZIP file - some great screenshots of v4.1 on a RPC, and a decent palette file.
BreadBox64 Demo
BreadPatch (22Kb) ZIP archive - a patch for the Breadbox which fixes some bugs and gives the program kernel-IO
D64FS - an image filing system for C64 images, by Andreas Dehmel

Software:
C64 software from ftp.funet.fi
Games from arnold.hiof.no
ftp://ftp.nvg.unit.no/pub/

Recommended software:
Creatures 2, Monty On The Run, Little Computer People, Impossible Mission, Katakis/Denaris, Bubble Bobble, Thrust, Elite Wizball, Slicks, Dizzy 3


The Acorn Emulation Page by David Sharp