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Commodore 64 Runs Again On the iPhone

Posted by Soulskill on from the also-accused-of-flip-flopping dept.

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."

6 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. Can you actually do anything useful? by omni123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is there actually a method of doing anything unscrupulous with a BASIC interpreter running inside a C64 emulator running on an iPhone?

    1. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's not the point. The point is, Apple must control everything. Yes, they regard even a BASIC interpreter as a threat. And they are very correct to do so. You might laugh but Apple's principles are sound. I have just spent some time reviewing documents from just before the Wall fell and it was very clearly revealed that letting people have a little bit of freedom was ultimately disastrous.

      --
      Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
    2. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? by Brian+Gordon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hate the ridiculous anti-free nature of the app store, but it's not hard to see why Apple would be concerned. The fear is that if a program gets into the App Store that allows any sort of user-provided data to be executed, then evil unlicensed apps could be delivered to the platform through that interpreter.

      For example, instead of writing your games in C and paying Apple to sell them on the app store, you could write your game in BASIC and deliver them through the C64 emulator. Apple makes no money. Not exactly practical, but if there's a hole in the interpreter environment that allows a jump into raw binary data (which could be set to ARM instructions) then it's up to the app developer to fix it, and Apple has no control. This is the kind of problem that plagued TI calculators for years until they decided to open them up, and was the door into custom unsigned software on game consoles before the age of modchips and hard drives.

    3. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes. You can do things your Apple overlords have not expressly given you permission to do. This cannot be allowed, because they have not given permission.

      The phone market is Apple's wet dream, because none of the customers have any expectation of openness or being able to actually do anything with their own hardware, so there's not much complaint when they give users the full Apple experience by locking everything down. I fully expect they'd do the exact same damn thing with OS X elsewhere if they could get away with it.

    4. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? by mgblst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It is ignorant to talk about Apple being upset at not being able to make money from Commodore basic games.

      You can already release as many free games as you want, which cost apple money to host, and they do not make a cent. Apple doesn't care if you release any game you want, or as many as you want for free. They will not stop you (as long as you follow the rules).

      It is clearly not about money. It is about a rule Apple created, not for commodore basic, but for things like flash. basic just happens to fit into this rule.

    5. Re:Can you actually do anything useful? by sjames · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Apple's problem is that they have a bunch of thieving users who think the iPhone is theirs to use as they wish just because they paid for it. Next thing you know, they'll be writing "hello world" and you know where that leads! If you give a bunch of scumbags like that even an inch, next thing you know, they'll be demanding that they get what they pay for every time! The nerve!!