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Commodore 64 Runs Again On the iPhone
Hugh Pickens writes "Stephen Williams reports in the NY Times that the app recreating some of the Commodore's seminal retro games, including Le Mans, Dragons Den and Jupiter Lander, has been re-issued after being pulled in September. The app features SID sound emulation, auto-save to continue where you left off, and a realistic joystick with a beautifully crafted C64 keyboard. Apple originally rejected the program for violating the SDK agreement, which dictates that 'no interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).' After disabling the controversial feature, Apple published the app in September, but days later it was pulled and the developer was asked to remove, rather than just disable, the BASIC interpreter from the program, which would have allowed unscrupulous users to run unlicensed, emulated code on the iPhone or iPod Touch. 'The road was bumpy, but we remained persistent and made the changes Apple was looking for. Ultimately, BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it,' the company wrote on its blog."
Is there actually a method of doing anything unscrupulous with a BASIC interpreter running inside a C64 emulator running on an iPhone?
There's an app for that!
0100010001101001011001 0100100000011010010110 1110001000000110000100 1000000110011001101001 0111001001100101
Jailbreak!
What is the point of running a Commodore C64 Basic application on a DAMN PHONE ?
--Ivan
I'll be over here playing Fort Apocalypse on my G1 :)
Just like a mountain.
This App is based on Frodo, a GPL licensed C64 emulator. While it offers, upon request, to email the Frodo source code to you (which can also be downloaded straight from the web site), it doesn't offer to send the source code of the complete App.
The Frodo source code is an integral part of the app, obviously, so I suspect this app will land them in choppy waters soon.
What's stopping you from doing something like Simon's BASIC or Forth or something else?
He hasn't commented yet, I'm sure he'll liken it back when he was a kid and the Romans were being really restrictive when it came to the slave trade. And we should get back to strong traditional morals laid out circa year 0.
Seriously, the guy makes my war hero grandfather sound like a hippy.
Screw Apple, give US this app in all its glory.
I downloaded it before it got taken down the first time and had fun entering BASIC command for a couple of seconds before I lost interest. Touch screen keyboards are fine for quick SMS messages or email but I couldn't imagine being such a masochist that I'd want to enter entire programs in with one! I suppose someone with enough resolve could do some amazing stuff and create an alternative interface to the iPhone with 8bit PETSCII glory. Actually that would be kinda cool.
Anyway despite that, I kept the application and won't be upgrading, if only just to (Mr Burns voice) honk off my Apple masters :).
Cheers, ~ Ruben
For some reason, Legacy of Ancients for C64 tugs at my heart strings as one of my favorite RPGS. It was also one of my first computer RPGS, and there is always something about your first RPG where you feel powering up your character really matters. I bet a lot of WOW people think powering up their character matters somehow because the game is so big.
My favorite things to do in Legacy of Ancients is to rob towns or to play flip flop(and consequently run out of town when I break the bank). There is also a sequel: Legend of Blacksilver which was bigger, but Legacy of the Ancients seemed more fun... Sorta the same way Super Mario Bros 1 was more fun for its time than Super Mario Bros 3 was even though SMB3 was superior in several ways.
Other games I liked on C64 were: Mail Order Monsters, and Racing Destruction Set. I wonder if they built a modern "Racing Destruction Set" and gave it the level creation tools and networking power of Little Big Planet if it would be a long time hit.
God spoke to me.
They are afraid that a game that slick, played on the iPod, might cause the universe to collapse under coolness.
Also, I hear Jobs is jealous that he wasn't the first one to come up with the phrase, "stay a while. Stay...FOREVER!!!"
I can't help but wonder if this whole soap opera isn't like just some jealous retribution against those old "COMMODORE ATE THE APPLE" newspaper headlines. So now it is back, but they yanked out BASIC...
"Oh, no! We suck again!" - Rob Schneider
Just FYI, jackass (make that "stupid", or perhaps, "special" jackass), the reason this is a story isn't because there's a C64 emulator for the iPhone. Rather, it's a story because Apple pulled it from their app store because you could run a BASIC interpreter on it, and only allowed it back on the app store after the interpreter was pulled.
I mean, jebus, is it so much to ask that you just read the "stupid" article summary?
Boo apple. The early home computers, including Apple, shipped with BASIC and a nicely bound manual with clear instructions on simple programming. This was the first step for many who are now players in the industry.
http://xkcd.com/662/
---
Retrogames Feed @ Feed Distiller
If you'd bother to read into the history of this, you'd understand why it's news-worthy. It was accepted by Apple, then pulled down awhile ago, due to "breaking the agreement," which caused the media to pick it up regarding if Apple should be allowed this level of control and what not. So the program isn't what's news, the fact that they were able to get around Apple is. If you'd bothered to have read the articles and a little bit of the history, you'd know that. Then again, it's typical for you Apple bashers to just come out and bash them without knowing a single fact.
Where do you put the 5.25 in disks?
I have just spent some time reviewing documents from just before the Wall fell [gwu.edu] and it was very clearly revealed that letting people have a little bit of freedom was ultimately disastrous.
Or maybe it was the fact that they never let people have any real freedom, and had informants and spies spying on their own people, that made people eventually rebel?
Not a good sign for Apple.. I own an iPhone, which I'm now wanting to replace as soon as something better comes along and I need it. It looks nice, but is crippled in so many ways, of course it's hacked, but still can't beat other offerings in technical functionality. I also own a 17" expensive Macbook Pro, which easily overheats and have non-standard keyboard and "BIOS", on which I'm running XP. The trackpad is nice, but that's about it, and it cost easily 4 times as much as decent PC laptops today.
Microsoft on the other hand is on the other top of their curve, and now has to sell Linux applications in order to stay relevant in the coming years.
is my Amiga emulator and a copy of K240 going to be on the iPhone!
Jonathanjk.com
No. Pick another platform which doesn't have such stupid limitations.
http://www.symbian.org/devices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Handset_Alliance#Members
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/en-us/devices/default.mspx
Show some kind of dignity. Stop buying devices treating you like some sort of criminal, 50 IQ idiot, 10 year old kid. Posted from Quad Core G5 btw...
Most of them started with C64 basic and became gurus of today. Why C64 BASIC? Because it was so horrible that you were required to do POKE hacks, ASM code, own ASM routines, know the registers etc.
Of course, after a certain level, they asked themselves "Why the heck am I bothering with this?" and moved to mixture of pure ASM and C.
Coding for 8bit computers were so hard that one Atari 800XL (8bit) game developer could move out of gaming business (because of distributor) and could start to code entire software of B2 stealth bomber.
I think the biggest concern is that malicious code may render the iPhone unusable as a phone. Apple is protecting its product, as it should.
Despite months of negotiations to get a Commodore 64 emulator approved for the iPhone, Apple has pulled the application after just two days after a hack was found that enables the BASIC interpreter.
“Anything capable of allowing programming — any programming — could be a security risk to the iPhone and its users,” said Apple in a statement to the Library of Congress on copyright. “As such, it is absolutely vital for the safety of the nation that we vet every single application and collect 30% on each one.”
Apple software reviewers, who are generally moonlighting from day jobs as TSA airport security policy writers, fear a wave of 1980s-style “hackers” using the iPhone to “dial” into NASA or National Security Agency computers using the accompanying 300-Baud Acoustic-Coupled Modem application. “We had our suspicions when the app lit the user’s face from below in just the right shade of green to show off their cheekbones really photogenically.”
Reviewers were particularly concerned that the BASIC interpreter was originally written by Microsoft. “Of course, their security is famously terrible,” said one reviewer in a break from torturing kittens. “We’d probably get a Commodore 64 virus. And their sense of aesthetics! No way Steve would ever let that through.”
A similar Commodore 64 emulator that gives ten cents to AT&T every time a user runs a game has passed approval in two days.
“A strange phone,” said NSA correspondent “WOPR.” “The only winning move is not to buy.”
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I mean, it is executing non-native code (6510 asm) without (I'm guessing) recompiling it for iPhone, providing a way to run programs with an in-between layer to not use the native stuff or keep Apples glorious blessing on the code. This is essentially what java or flash does, construct a secondary layer where code can run. On the other hand, Apple is Apple and pretty much reserves the right to be inconsistent, bizarre and allow or disallow things at will depending on what suits them so I guess it's par for the course.
..tag the above down, please use "Offtopic", as I know Virus was not made for C64
C64 BASIC is a Microsoft Product (seriously, it is). Maybe this is the real reason Apple doesn't want it running on the iPhone.
I wonder if they built a modern "Racing Destruction Set" and gave it the level creation tools and networking power of Little Big Planet if it would be a long time hit.
We may get a chance to find out with ModNation Racers for the PS3.
Slashdot Required Reading
screw Apple's fascism. Port it to Android, free of those silly emulator restrictions, and a platform that is quickly overtaking iPhone
My point here is that in the longer run what will destroy the Wall is that there are now going to be three Linux based phone OSes, Android, Maemo and Samsung's Bada. To get developer traction these must all offer developer features that the iPhone does not. The ability to run FOSS applications without DRM is what developers want to hear.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
a realistic joystick
What is that then? A Bluetooth device? Do you swing your iPhone around like a stick while trying to look at your waggling screen?
Do you plug your surplus Atari VCS stick into the serial port via a 9-pin D-SUB port converter?
I'm going to go with David Lynch on this one, who famously ranted that "you can't watch a movie on a fscking phone." You can't have a "realistic" joystick on a phone, because an image of a joystick is not realistic, nor does it even approximate the input device. It's a neat toy, not a reproduction heirloom.
Why do I nitpick? Frankly I don't like reading obvious marketing text in my summary. This goes for "beautifully crafted" too. Report, don't advertise, please.
--
Toro
Have you even LOOKED at the App Store? Tons of FREE software. So obviously that's not the motivation. How's this for a rational explanation: Let's say Apple allows it and someone somehow writes code that fuggs up the iphone. Who does the phone's owner come crying to? That's right, APPLE.
I agree. Fair enough it's newsworthy that their batshit policies banned it, but now they finally allow it isn't newsworthy.
I downloaded it before it got taken down the first time and had fun entering BASIC command for a couple of seconds before I lost interest. Touch screen keyboards are fine for quick SMS messages or email but I couldn't imagine being such a masochist that I'd want to enter entire programs in with one! I suppose someone with enough resolve could do some amazing stuff and create an alternative interface to the iPhone with 8bit PETSCII glory. Actually that would be kinda cool.
Anyway despite that, I kept the application and won't be upgrading, if only just to (Mr Burns voice) honk off my Apple masters :).
Why not ditch the iPhone and get something with a keyboard and no Apple masters?
I'm waiting for AmigaOS on Droid.
You lack persistence. I'm nearly done entering all of the DATA statements for a full assembler. Probably only need a few more weeks and then a few nights of verifying what I've entered. I've tacked on a bit of code to poke the whole thing into REM statements, at which point I'll be ready to recreate Zaxxon.
People need to realize that the iphone isn't a pocket computer. It's an appliance. Apple didn't market it as a pocket computer, and iphone owners did not purchase the right to run whatever software they like on it. You buy that right when you buy any apple computer, but you can't purchase that right with an iphone.
i consider owning a compiler a right comparable to that guaranteed by the 2nd amendment;-)
Hmmm, there's tons of stuff that's interpreted... HTML is interpreted in the browser. Guess you can't use that. Every input box is interpreted and has an action performed on the user data. In a way, all user data/browser source code... etc is all interpreted. I guess Apple shouldn't allow ANY data to be interpreted if that's their stance... then you have a static program where it only has one course of action and always will perform the same way.