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."
Commodore 64? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:C64 without BASIC? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:C64 without BASIC? (Score:4, Interesting)
So, no, it was not just a basic interpreter.
There's at least one running as a web server now.
I won't post the link to it. It takes very little to induce the slashdot effect on that hardware.
App approval? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you *have* to get apples blessing to distribute an app, or is it just to use the appstore?
Re:Commodore 64? (Score:2, Interesting)
Hopefully, yes. But the 64 had a different fan base. While the ][ fanbase moved on to the Mac, a good chunk of the 64 hacking fanbase held on. The 64 went from popular platform to popular retro platform almost seamlessly. No surprise it got emulated first.
A ][ emulator shouldn't be far behind, but I'll love it if someone comes along with a Palm Pilot emu first.
Re:App Store censorship (Score:2, Interesting)
Why Windows Mobile in particular?
Well, frankly, Symbian and Android don't come anywhere near the amount of available applications that WinMo has. For me one of the top criteria is whether I can find applications for every need.
So you're making a compromise between the level of flexibility you want to control your phone and development environment, compared to the features and usability offered.
I believe that is normal behavior. Everybody makes their own personal judgment on what are important criteria for them and how important they are, and pick a product based on their own priorities.
You just draw the line in a different place than the average user.
If I'm not an "average user", I'm thankful for that.
Apple is pitching it as a feature, as in, they police the spectrum of apps completely and thus remove the majority of security risks either immediately or when discovered.
I don't need any Big Brother picking my apps for me. I'm an adult and I take my own risks.
You might find yourself having fewer non-crippled choices if Apple's model is successful.
And that's why I don't buy Apple.
people don't want all that many applications on their phone
I don't make my decisions on what platform I'm going to spend my money on, based on what *other* people want.
Re:C64 without BASIC? (Score:1, Interesting)
Um. The C64 had a cartridge slot. As it bank-switched, cartridges could "take over" and hide the basic rom
Alternative (less godawful than microsoft's) BASICs (Simons BASIC), Forth implementations, and _many_ games were released in cartridge form, though disk and tape were always more popular for simple cost reasons. There was even a keyboardless cartridge-only C64 "game system" console released, at least here in Europe. I'm not sure if the C64GS even had BASIC roms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64_Games_System [wikipedia.org]
Re:No way will Apple allow BASIC (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember reading a description of AMAX somewhere as "a hostile port of the Macintosh OS to the Amiga platform". The Atari ST also had a similar product (though I think it actually came first) called "Magic Sack" I think; got renamed to that due to a lawsuit, don't remember the (probably better) original name.
AMAX patched the Mac Plus ROM to work with the Amiga's hardware, so you just had effectively a Mac Plus. No Color QuickDraw. I remember the compatibility as being pretty good; programs that had trouble (for me anyway) were ones that assumed the Mac Plus' screen dimensions (512x342 pixels I think). AMAX ran the Amiga's display at 640X400.
The cool thing about running AMAX was that it initialized the Amiga's hardware upon "boot", but once System 6 (or System 7) was up and running, you could experiment with tweaking the Amiga's hardware registers without the Amiga's OS updating them. I had a copy of ThinkC for the Mac and wrote a few little programs to play around with the Amiga hardware that way, like setting different screen colors and whatnot, It was fun for hacking around. Ah, memories,
Re:No way will Apple allow BASIC (Score:3, Interesting)
Quick, make it more well known so Apple is sure to pull it off the AppStore tomorrow morning, if it takes that long.
As of this morning it's no longer available in the US, according to the App Store app. :(