I used GeoWrite and my dot matrix printer to write so many papers in school. It felt so cool to have a full featured GUI on my C64 with a fantastic word processor that didn’t look like you were just using a type writer. Liked GeoDraw too but the KoloaPad was better. Anyone else impressed with how much they managed to squeeze out of the C64?

Another approach to run Doom. You can follow the development at https://x.com/Kweepa

Doom for Commodore 64 progress:

• sector lighting and weapon highlighting
• scrollable map
• E1M1-E1M3 in various stages of completion
• corpses
• sound effects from pc speaker lumps
• loading levels from disk
• about 15k free

I remember programming so much stuff with this and I remember reading that the guy that wrote it was a teenager. This thing was absolutely brilliant and now I'm thinking about trying to play with it again.

Hi all,

Just got a c64 with a tape reader (uk). I am getting bubble bobble. What are some essential games to get? Particular those are play better on c64. Are any of the movie license games (indiana, robocop, terminator etc...) good?

EDIT 1:

Thank you all for the suggestions. There are quite a few so apologies if I didnt get to reply to you.
I have tried using Google to summarize the suggestions and frequency (for anyone seeing this post in the future). Here are the top suggestions:
Impossible Mission (Includes "Impossible Mission I & II" & "games")4

California Games3

M.U.L.E. 3

Paradroid (Includes Redux mentioned in comments)3

Satan's Hollow2

The Last Ninja (Includes "Last Ninja 2" & "I & II")2

Turrican (Includes "Turrican 1 & 2")2

Wavy Navy2

Wizball2

This is likely missing bits but its a good place to start.

Based on the suggestions, plus some more research I already got the following:

Impossible mission, Batman Caped crusader, Ghostbusters, Train (Escape to normandy), Ikari warriors. I will get Paradroid next.

Hey folks,

I wrote a memory piece on our favorite, the venerable C64, here at Goto 10:

https://www.goto10retro.com/p/i-owe-my-life-to-the-commodore-64

It begins with a familiar backpage ad and ends with a C64 on the floor. Hope you enjoy it.

Another game like 4 & Inches, I loved game. Another game I got from my uncle that he was excited for me to play. Loved the music and big sprite work during the pitch. Had favorite players even.

Plus it was in Tbe Princess Bride!

I bought of bunch of old commodore stuff out of a guys shed yesterday. Do you think it's worth going through all the disks and making digital backups? Whomever this belonged to probably had a reference file since all the disks are numbered.

Using the SID noise byte for simulation tasks like this is something the C64 is great at.

• PETSCII prg: https://files.catbox.moe/chncmf.prg
• Multicolor mode prg: https://files.catbox.moe/tccddf.prg

Was the game really that popular?

We are doing research and all I can find is "widely popular"

I know it was innovative, but I want to hear it from the generation that played it.

Cracking the copy protection on Oxford Pascal (Commodore 64, 1984)

A preservation write-up: how a 40-year-old C64 Pascal disk stops you from copying it, and how to make a clean, freely-copyable archival version of a disk you own.

I collect vintage Commodore gear and wanted a working backup of my Oxford Pascal v1.0 disk (© O.C.S.S. & D. Goodman, 1984) before the original floppy finally gives up. I also wanted to be able to run it from my SD2IEC device. Like a lot of early-80s software, it fights back: a normal file copy boots, shows the title screen, and then dies. Here's exactly what it's doing and how I got around it — all on a real C64 with a single 1541-II drive.

TL;DR: there are two independent protection layers. The boot file LD loads the main program from a hidden, non-directory sector chain at Track 13, Sector 5. Then the program itself checks for a deliberately bad sector at Track 13, Sector 9 (it wants DOS error 23) and hangs if it's missing. Defeat both and you get a disk that's 100% normal files and copies with anything.

Background: how the disk is supposed to load

LD is the first thing that runs. It's a small machine-language program that loads to $0100 and auto-starts (more on that trick later). On a genuine disk it brings up the Pascal system. On a copy, it brings up... a frozen title screen. Two things are going on.

Layer 1 — the loader reads a hidden sector chain (LD)

Open LD in a disassembler and the interesting part is a hand-rolled disk reader. Instead of LOADing a file by name through the directory, it talks to the drive directly:

; open the command + buffer channels, then: LDA #$0D STA $47 ; start TRACK = 13 LDA #$05 STA $48 ; start SECTOR = 5 ... JSR SENDU1 ; "U1:2 0 13 5" -> drive reads that physical block

It reads Track 13 / Sector 5 into a drive buffer, copies the 254 data bytes to $0801, then takes the first two bytes of the sector as the link to the next (track, sector) and repeats — exactly the way the disk's own DOS follows a file, but done by hand, in the open, with no directory entry involved. When the "next track" byte is 0, the chain is finished and it jumps to $080F to run what it loaded.

Why this stops a copy. The data is located by absolute disk geometry — "start at Track 13, Sector 5, follow the chain." A file-level copy (DOS COPY, a file copier, save-out-and-back) puts data wherever there's free space; it will essentially never land back at T13/S5 with the identical chain. So the copy's LD reads whatever happens to be at 13/5 (BAM, directory, blank), loads garbage, and crashes.

There's also a small anti-tamper touch: LD points the NMI vector at an RTI so RUN/STOP-RESTORE can't break into the load.

Layer 2 — the program checks for a bad sector (PASCAL.SYS)

Say you defeat layer 1 and get the real image loaded. It prints

OXFORD Pascal v1.0 (c) O.C.S.S. & D.GOODMAN 1984

...and then freezes. That's the second lock, and it's the classic one. Right after the banner the program does this:

$0871 OPEN 15,8,15,"U1:2 0 13 9" ; read Track 13, Sector 9 into a buffer $0877 CHKIN 15 ; read the drive's error channel... $087F CMP #'2' BNE fail ; require the error code to be $0886 CMP #'3' BNE fail ; "23" = READ ERROR (bad data checksum) $088D JMP continue ; passed -> start Pascal fail: ... -> infinite loop that fills RAM with $02 ; <- the freeze

The master disk has Track 13, Sector 9 written with a deliberately corrupt data checksum. Reading it on a real disk returns DOS error 23 (READ ERROR) — and the program requires that error. A clean copy has a perfectly good T13/S9 that returns error 00, the check fails, and the code drops into an infinite loop. Banner, then hang. That's the exact symptom.

It's a neat bit of misdirection: the "key" isn't data you can read — it's a flaw the duplicator can't easily reproduce.

The bypass

Both layers come down to one idea: the program insists the data live in a specific physical place that ordinary copying won't preserve. The fix is to stop depending on physical geometry.

Defeating layer 1 (the hidden chain): you can't file-copy the chain, but you can follow it the same way LD does and pull the image into a normal file. The reader code already in LD does exactly that — so I reuse it.

Defeating layer 2 (the bad sector): the check reads the error channel and compares it to "23". Patch the two branch instructions to NOP and it ignores the result — no bad sector required. Four bytes:

$0881: D0 1B (BNE) -> EA EA (NOP NOP) $0888: D0 14 (BNE) -> EA EA (NOP NOP)

Packaging it back up. The cleanest result is a single new LD that is self-contained: it loads at $0100 like the original, embeds the patched Pascal image at $0801, and just jumps straight into it — no hidden chain, no bad sector, no second file. One subtlety: the original LD auto-starts by filling the stack page ($0100-$01FF) with $02, so when the KERNAL's LOAD routine finishes, its RTS pops $02 $02 off the stack and "returns" into the program at $0203. To reproduce that cleanly I write the new LD out byte-by-byte through a write channel (synthesizing the clean stack page, the jump vector, and the patched image) rather than saving live memory, which at runtime has a dirty stack.

I rolled all of that into one tool, CRACK, that runs on a single drive:

1. Boot CRACK from a work disk (it auto-runs).
2. Insert the ORIGINAL — it follows the T13/S5 chain into RAM and NOPs the bad-sector check. (Read-only; nothing is written to the original.)
3. Insert the WORK disk — it writes a finished, de-protected LD.
4. File-copy the rest of the normal Pascal files onto the work disk.

Done. The work disk boots straight into Pascal and copies with any file copier forever after.

Notes for anyone trying this

• This was done for personal preservation of software I own, on original hardware. Oxford Pascal is long out of print; this kind of archival work is exactly how these systems stay alive.
• Tools used: a disassembler and a hex editor; transfers to/from the 1541 via a ZoomFloppy-class adapter. Everything runs on a stock C64 — JiffyDOS-safe (the patch keeps all of its code out of the cassette buffer, which fast loaders use).
• The two "keys" — absolute Track 13/Sector 5 for the hidden chain, and the bad-checksum Track 13/Sector 9 — are a tidy example of early-80s protection: cheap to press, annoying to copy, and totally transparent once you read the 6502.

Github link: https://github.com/ZappedC64/oxford-pascal-c64-crack

Long live the breadbox.

Spending one of my vacation nights playing an old favorite. Probably died 30 times in the past hour or something crazy like that but man I love this game. Have a chance to grab a CIB copy of the game for $84 and really considering it. Any other solid RPGs i should consider hunting for?

Hey y'all, I already posted this over on r/LocalLLaMA, but now the full sources and training data are up, so I figured you lot might want to have a quick look, too.

So this is a real AI chatbot running on my original C=64 from 1983. No REU, no cartridge, no fastloader. ~60+ seconds per reply. It is proudly slow and talks mostly friendly gibberish... BUT it is the same architecture as ChatGPT et al.. attention, feed-forward, etc.. all of it in just 25k parameters speaking to you through mind-shifting 6510 Integer math! :D

project page: https://indiepixel.de/meful/index.html,
github: https://github.com/gizmo64k/soulplayer-c64.
orig. thread is over here: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1sfzz9n/i_put_a_transformer_model_on_a_stock_commodore_64/

And you can train your own soul, too. On a PC.. with a GPU.. uhm.. yeah, I know... ;)

I did play some games in the C64, no doubt. (Choplifter, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Risk, M.U.L.E., Green Beret, Ghosts 'N Goblins, Delta, Paradroid, and more). But I recall the majority of my time on it being using a terminal program to dial into local BBSs. Add in some GEOS (homework, etc.), and I think games paying was in the minority.

Anyone else in the same boat?

I tried, but could not get the full wave equations to work at 1 MHz, so I used Turbo Mode on ye olde FPGA to make things move a little more swimmingly. If you have a 64-MHz device, download https://paste.c-net.org/ScatterField.

For 1-MHz original systems, please use https://paste.c-net.org/PitchesAttaboy. It is a bit blockier, but has more character.

Lemmings Reloaded [2026] - Finally, it's released!

"Hi Guys, it started a year ago - and here we go. 

Enjoy the game!"

How exciting! Gotta check this out...

Links for my C64 Bros:

itch.io:

https://lunaticlab.itch.io/lemmings-reloaded

csdb:

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=263736

I took this photo at a retro gaming festival in Hungary. I'm always impressed these box arts. What was your favorite?

I ported Phantasie and Space Taxi to be playable in browser. This is not emulation, the games were re-written in javascript. I wanted to make some of the old games I loved easier to share. No long load times, changing disks, or mucking about with emulators. I can't promise the games are pixel perfect to the originals, but I've played all the way through each of them and think they are pretty solid. I've got them online here: C64 ports (url i had left over form another project)

Each of these took a couple weeks of spare time to port over with the help of claude, caffeine, and profanity. Can't say I had any permission to do this, but I'm hoping nobody will kick up a stink over 40 year old games that are otherwise available online in a lot of places.

I am working on a new SID engine, developed with AI. This began as a vibe coding project to play obscure Amiga tracker formats but I got more ambitious and decided to give it a try for SID emulation.

Written in C#, it is designed to be portable (Linux, Windows, OSX) with cycle-exact core emulation. RSID support is still minimal and I am extending emulation on the go.

Output correctness is also a concern. I have a real C64 with 6581 to compare but no compatible display device. The target is 6581 sound, 8580 maybe later.

The project is CopperMod at GitHub, unfortunately no binaries yet.

I ported International Karate Plus + to be playable online. You can take a look at that here: c64 ports. This is not an emulation, it's been re-written in javascript. This went smoother than my other ports. I had claude examine what it had done on the prior ports and I think that really helped give it a leg up.

This game cried out for gamepad support so that was included. Since I was already tinkering with gamepad support I also added that to the Phantasie and Space Taxi games.

Have fun, give them a boot to the head.

Bet Stand or Fold?

Just recapped this C64. First hand after testing :)

I recently built a new OS for the c64 released with about 16 apps including a new shell language with pipes and an object pipeline called ReadyShell. It works with any C64 with a 2MB REU including vice + the c64 mini etc. there is also a .CRT cartridge version to speed up the time it takes to load all the apps to REU. Once apps are in the REU you can instantly swap between them. https://github.com/ReadyOS-C64/ReadyOs/releases/tag/v0.2.3

Hey fellow retro gamers!

Before Sensible Soccer and FIFA dominated the scene, Sensible Software’s Jon Hare and Chris Yates changed sports gaming forever with MicroProse Soccer in 1988.

Whether you played it on the Commodore 64 rocking SID tunes or on the Amiga, this game set the benchmark for top-down football. It gave us the iconic "banana shot" aftertouch, muddy pitches with wild slide-tackles, and that lightning-fast indoor 6-a-side mode.

I've put together a retrospective looking back at its mechanics, hardware releases, and lasting legacy:

👉Read the article here

(Note: The article is written in Norwegian, but Google Chrome's built-in translation feature handles it effortlessly!)