C64 Emulator Finally Approved For iPhone 214
Gi0 writes "After a couple of months of rejection, the C64 Emulator has finally been approved for the iPhone (and is available at the app store now). 'BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it. Despite its absence, BASIC is not our focus; ultimately, fans of the C64 want games.' It comes with 5 bundled games and will certainly give you that retro fix for your iPhone."
C64 without BASIC? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:C64 without BASIC? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretty much everything commercial, be it games or productivity software, was written in assembly, usually via machine code monitors.
The BASIC interpreter was pretty bare bones (no sprites/sound/graphics), if you wanted to write games that weren't either text-based adventures or had your character as a horse simulated by the Ï character, you were pretty much required to use machine code. Note that sound/sprites/graphics could be done via PEEK/POKE as mentioned, but was a total chore without a proper monitor/assembler. It would also require a stack of graphing paper for drawing the sprites & determining the binary values.
Debugging something like
1000 DATA 123, 6, 43, 69, 240, 122, 51
2000 DATA 120, 120, 85, 239, 4
is for suckers
Re:App approval? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no such thing as a "developer hardware" that could make your development/testing easier - you have to wait the random approval process before any hands on testing (you are restricted to software emulators).
Last I checked, you could get a developer's signing key to put an unapproved app on a limited number of devices for testing.
Basic is there. Just reset the emulator. (Score:3, Insightful)
And it sucks. And it's from Microsoft. OMG C64 was evil
Microsoft's greatest blunder in their early years was to license BASIC to Tramiel's Commodore with a once-ever fee of, some say, as little as $50000. C= then sold tens of millions of machines without paying any more to M$.
Well, M$ learned. C= died.
Re:No way will Apple allow BASIC (Score:4, Insightful)
And because sandboxes tend to leak. VBScript, ActiveX, Flash, Adobe, and Javascript have all had their fair share of vulnerabilities.
Apple is committed to only running signed code on their handhelds. That way, if a regular app is discovered to be malicious, Apple can blacklist it. But how does Apple blacklist malicious third-party unsigned code that another application—say, a Flash player—executes? The best they could do is blacklist the Flash player itself, disabling all the perfectly benign Flash apps and pissing off millions of people.
Now, you may argue that "the user" should have control over what code their phone executes. And in the case of Slashdotters, you're probably right. But normal, non-savvy users don't understand technical warnings. They don't comprehend that executing a tiny bit of malicious code can hand their entire computer over to an attacker, and that there may be no way to undo the damage. They should not be put in a position where they can they can screw up their system with a tap of a "yes" button, for the same reason that cars should not have a "disable emissions controls, gain ten horsepower" switch and skyscrapers should not have a shiny red button that says "collapse building." Curiosity killed the cat, as they say; no matter how well-intentioned the user may be, dancing pigs win out in the end.
So long as Apple provides a means for people who know what they're doing to run custom code—anyone can buy a developer key for about the cost of one month's phone bill—I won't complain about Apple making it harder for ignorant people to do stupid things.
Re:Corrections to many mistakes on your part (Score:1, Insightful)
There is a whole other app store - Cydia. Yes you have to jailbreak to use it, but that's just a few clicks these days - and well over a million devices are jailbroken (according to Cydia). If there were a reason, I'd not hesitate to tell someone non-technical to go this route.
I don't know many people that jailbreak their phones anymore -- many are afraid, others don't think its "worth it" (see first reason for explanation). Anyone still using the "jailbreak then cydia" bs to "prove" you can distribute your apps is just full of it. I suggest you start looking for other excuses.
There is no such thing as a "developer hardware" that could make your development/testing easier
You say that like it's a bad thing you can use any commercial device to test, instead of paying more for custom test systems that often have worse abilities than the commercial versions (and you have to get the commercial variants to do final testing with anyway).
Agreed with you on that one, but it still bites that you have to register (not sure if you have to pay the 99$) to sign your apps for the hardware... of course, you usually have to do that when using "developer hardware", so the point is moot...
You pay $99 and you get approved in a few weeks - hardly "random".
The approval/rejection process is what people are considering random, not the "paying 99$ and get approved in a few weeks" part. You sure do like to avoid the actual points people are trying to make, huh?
I can't develop Windows Mobile apps on my Mac.
Your statement is correct (as far as I know) but besides the point. Nice one though.
That's a pretty useless statement by itself, since that whole area is wide open to interpretation - there are for example VOIP clients on the phone today, so you have to understand what it is that GV is "duplicating" since GV is not VOIP. It's the whole SMS/contact infrastructure Apple is not as happy about.
While I partially agree with your harsh opinion of the GP's comment, no one said GV was a "VOIP" app. But you are correct -- the whole are IS wide open to interpretation... APPLE's interpretation (see "random approval process" above). Apple claims they're not happy about GV's "integration", not the SMS/contact part (surely there are other SMS/contact apps out there, and they're approved even though they're "duplicate", no?). Apple is unhappy that Google is coming out with something very very cool long before Apple is ready for it, duplicate functionality or not.
There are notebook apps a-plenty, Notebook is built into the phone.. There are a million picture taking apps, and the camera app is built into the phone...
No one cares about notebook apps. No one cares about picture taking apps. People care about vidcam apps -- oh wait, those were refused till Apple decided it was time for *them* to release one. See my previous comment for reasoning on that...
You get my drift, things are not as simple as you make out.
I prefer the GP's "simplified" statements over what I've read in your post, to be frank.
Your app cannot allow any form of access to cussing words or the like.
Sure it can, it just has to be rated correctly.
Don't know how the whole rating system works, but I doubt its that simple. Unless, of course, I can publish an app called "F*cking iPhone Garbage App", in which case I stand corrected :-)
Re:App approval? (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember the 80's, when it was an Apple person throwing the hammer to destroy the IBM PC "big brother"? Does anyone else find it amusingly ironic that the most controlled platform in existence today is Apple's, and that the Apple fanboys who would have considered themselves to be that person throwing off the chains of PC control in the 80's are today touting the benefits of not having any control over the hardware and software you buy?
Rubbish. Users need to learn (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, you may argue that "the user" should have control over what code their phone executes. And in the case of Slashdotters, you're probably right. But normal, non-savvy users don't understand technical warnings. They don't comprehend that executing a tiny bit of malicious code can hand their entire computer over to an attacker, and that there may be no way to undo the damage. They should not be put in a position where they can they can screw up their system with a tap of a "yes" button, for the same reason that cars should not have a "disable emissions controls, gain ten horsepower" switch and skyscrapers should not have a shiny red button that says "collapse building."
No, actually it's more like saying scissors and knives shouldn't have sharp edges, and that cars shouldn't have accelerator pedals because in both cases it can lead to death or injury. In the case of a car the carnage you can cause unintentionally is so great that you require a license which is only granted when you learn how to drive properly (which is a more advanced skill than using a knife). In the case of scissors and knives there is a risk of injury but you're less likely to kill and maim lots of people and it's left to your parents to teach you the basic skill.
So you could argue that users need to be licensed and should prove they can use their device to no great harm, or more sanely you can argue that since they're most likely to only hurt themselves and not critically. So the skill should be taught at home or at school. Trying to use a phone or computer when you don't understand just doesn't work. It's not that kind of device. In any case if people can learn to text and IM it's an issue of laziness and neglect that they don't bother to learn how to secure their device. It's not brain surgery.
Apple's alternative - locking down the phone - is all about serving Apple's purposes and has nothing to do with the user's needs.
Re:No way will Apple allow BASIC (Score:3, Insightful)
Quick, make it more well known so Apple is sure to pull it off the AppStore tomorrow morning, if it takes that long.
You guys are so concerned with showing how cool you are to find the way around things, but too stupid to realize that telling everyone means it'll go away fast as shit. Twits.
Re:Possibly the coolest story ever on /. (Score:3, Insightful)
Rejected (Score:4, Insightful)
And Apple have obviously rejected it again. It now says: No longer available.
Obviously Apple found out that the basic was actually available and removed it.
Re:BASIC is needed to fire up most games (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually they were called intros. "Demo" meant a standalone (and usually longer than an intro) audio/visual show.
Re:Rejected (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, Apple yanked the app because of the BASIC interpreter hole, and the developers have plugged it and resubmitted the app.
Way to go, Apple. I mean, what harm could that BASIC interpreter do? It has no means of loading external code - no access to local filesystem of the underlying OS, no network connectivity, nothing. Are they afraid I'll manually type-in a program from a listing published in a magazine or something?
I got tons more "sense of childlike wonder" from toying with the interpreter than I could ever from playing Jack Attack and Dragon's Den combined!
Sheesh...