Commodore Remix

Emulations of older machines aren't considered genuine experiences are they, even if the PC-based emulations are spot-perfect or thereabouts.

So is using PET software on a Commodore 64 (with emulator) as 'dirty' as running it on a PC? Or is it as 'valid' to run it on a 64 as it would be to use something like Vice on a PC?

What do we all think? For me it's a question of whichever method works for you.

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Some software: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz= ... +pet+games

The PET emulator for the 64: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/pet.d64


More GREAT fodder, to paste into VICE to look at and save, or just transfer: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8070&p=93169#p93169

Me: http://www.dustybin.org.uk

Since PETs make a nice little chirpy sound when you turn them on, and have a black/green screen, it's not quite the same as doing a C64 on a TV. But if I hadn't had my first formative computing experiences on a Pet 4032, I wouldn't really care...

Depends what you want from emulation. If you simply want to see something in action, play a game or see some software running then an emulator is great.

However if you want to experience and relive the retro experience, than real hardware is what you need. Glowing green screen, smell of the case and electronics, buzzing of the monitor or circuit board, tacticle experience of the keyboard and case.

If you experienced the PET as I did back at school then the overall clunky and unwieldy feeling is badly missed using an emulator. The lack of physical presence, of the enormous twin disk station... the emulation just felt 'Meh... another old machine' in comparison.

Emulating a PET on the C64 is different but that's just the C64, not the 'thrill' of the PET...

I had a PET myself. A 2001 which I rescued from a skip at school. I wrote some very rudimentary BASIC games as I couldn't get any software anywhere. I also got by using a VIC20 manual with it.

(EDIT - And I also remember eating lots of toast with it, thick 'doorsteps' dripping with butter and Bovril. Yeah, you're right about the 'experience'!)



It had a smell alright when a cat urinated on it in the storage shed! It was starting to fail anyway by which time I hankered after a C64 upgrade.

Perhaps if I got hold of an Educator 64 it would put things 'right'? After all, a PET emulator on the 64 just re-routes the RAM addresses and suchlike.

Vosla wrote:If you experienced the PET as I did back at school then the overall clunky and unwieldy feeling is badly missed using an emulator. The lack of physical presence, of the enormous twin disk station... the emulation just felt 'Meh... another old machine' in comparison.

Emulating a PET on the C64 is different but that's just the C64, not the 'thrill' of the PET...

I'm telling you... that little "trill" when it's switched on is the nearest I ever heard to a computer having a little orgasm, just happy to be alive

I certainly enjoyed what seemed an enveloping feel of my PET, bereft of peripherals though it was. It felt substantial, more 'real' than the little plastic things everyone else had. Yeah, the Nintendo and Segas which were coming around were flashier but I could create my own bits of rubbish on the PET.

Aah, the 2001: http://www.vintagecomputers.btinternet. ... /index.htm

Space restricts my getting another one, but using a 64 to run PET software is tantalisingly near to the original thing, though still so far.

Here is the emulator I use: http://www.dustybin.org.uk/pet.d64 , along with PRG files I added from this page: http://www.commodorepet.org/down12.html . As far as I'm concerned this is no different to running C64 programs on a 128 in C64 mode.

Enjoy your PETting!

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http://www.dustybin.org.uk

Chris Abbott wrote:

Vosla wrote:If you experienced the PET as I did back at school then the overall clunky and unwieldy feeling is badly missed using an emulator. The lack of physical presence, of the enormous twin disk station... the emulation just felt 'Meh... another old machine' in comparison.

Emulating a PET on the C64 is different but that's just the C64, not the 'thrill' of the PET...

I'm telling you... that little "trill" when it's switched on is the nearest I ever heard to a computer having a little orgasm, just happy to be alive

BBC Model B had my fav turn on noise. The ultimate turn on noise was the Speak and Spell of course, but that's not really a home computer, so...

Talking of orgasms, why has this thread been stickied?...

I gave it a sticky for a few days because of the plebiscite.

On balance I probably shouldn't have done it just for that, so I'm sure the admin team will un-sticky it if you ask them.

The BBC micro startup noise is my fave, I used to have it as my windows startup noise but it was just a bit too loud!

Lets not forget that the Mac still has a bootup sound to this very day.

Boot-up sounds are a hold-over from the analogue days when equipment needed to warm up. Making a sound was a good way of testing that everything was working.

Return is telling the computer 'over to you'. Go ahead, press play.








http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/pet/

Well... personaly I'd prefer using the real thing to using emulators... and that's not just the computers themselves, but also it's sound generation techniques... I'd simply not accept an emulated SID chip sound in my remixes, I want the real deal if it's for making music. Why? because if I'm making C64 remixes, it's because I'm being nostalgic, and just as someone wants Jarre to use his older gear, because it's what we know him best for, then making remixes of C64 tunes in my world would require the nostalgica of also using the real SID chip.... that is, if any SID sounds are to be present at all of course. It's what would drive my interrest in using the SID's sounds.

But that aside, I've yet to use the SID's sound more in a remix

Also... sometimes I've had the urge to code on the AMIGA again... even though I've not done it yet, IF I was to do it, I'd certainly get a real AMIGA... using an emulator to me just simply seem plain "plastic" to me... "not right"... maybe because I've been coding it so much in the past... it's the feel from back then that I would want, but I'd not get that from sitting in front af a PC and an LCD monitor... even though it would certainly be much more flexible and better looking.

'Authentic flavour' can only go so far Razmo. Would you realise I recorded this doodle with a VSTi if you weren't told?
I still get the nostalgia.


To my mind this case stands with more advanced tracks too. There's no reason not to combine the real deal with sample sets and emulations if they make a knockout result. You can even 'juice' up PC-based synth tracks with preamps.


And after the usual studio processing and mixture with other sounds, who could tell a 'dummy' SID from a real one anyway?

I cannot say for sure... now that I know you did, I actualy feel the "doodle" is a bit too clean to be the "real deal"... but my comment was not on recognition at all actualy, but about what I would do if I were to use SID sounds in my remixes... I simply would not use a SID replica... both because I've got the real deal, but also because I feel, that if it was to be recreated I'd rather use a totaly different instrument like I did in my recent Mutants remix where I used a Matrix-1000 to do the intro burbling sound.

So for me it's either recreating the SID sound with a totaly different machine, or the real deal... because that's what drive my interest... it's not that I try to diss' those who DO use SID emulations... not at all... but you asked in your artikle here, what WE think... and you got my answer