Sunday, May 26, 2024

LCD version of 6502 emulators ported to Windows

 

LCDs and Windows too!

Now the c-simple-emu6502-cbm unified branch that works with LCD systems has been ported to Windows!  This is an emulator that includes a feature to switch between various popular Commodore 8-bit models from the BASIC prompt.

You may ask yourself, hey self, wasn't Windows already a supported system?  And you could answer, yes self, it was.  But only in text mode.  If you wanted to run Commodore BASIC from a command prompt, yes you could do that.  If you wanted to run this emulator with the nifty "GO 128" command in a graphical environment you were required to use those smallish LCDs (well the 7" isn't too smallish).

Now, by porting this C++ project back to Windows again, using GUI elements, it can now look more like a Commodore.  The fully resizable window, and keyboard support make it feel like you have a Commodore right in front of you.  You virtually do!

For now, you need to compile the project in Visual Studio 2022 (Community Edition should work just fine).  It probably also works from Visual Code, but I haven't attempted that yet.

Dependencies include a roms folder (see README.md), optional disks/drive8.d64, and optional disks/drive9.d64

The purpose of this is to ease development of new features, utilizing the feature rich Visual Studio IDE including debug support.

The benefits to other users include being able to test drive the project in an environment they already have - their existing Windows desktop or VM.   And if you love it and think you may enjoy a portable version, you can then invest your dollars into an LCD solution via various online retail websites.   There may even be a search engine out there to help you too.

Are you keeping up with Commodore?  Happy computing!  Spend that money wisely.

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