wrote a commodore-64 emulator using just Python

[Irmen de Jong]

On 08/13/2017 03:50 PM, Irmen de Jong wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> As another experiment with using just tkinter for graphics, this time I created a
> Commodore-64 emulator. You can find it here https://github.com/irmen/pyc64

[...]

> There's also https://github.com/mnaberez/py65 so... possibilities?

Well, I went ahead and integrated that with my emulator. With just a
slight modification (that is now merged into the py65 library) I could
hook it up to the bytearray that my emulator uses to simulate the C64's
RAM. And letting the 'SYS' basic command kick of the 6502 simulator,
rather than doing nothing, it suddenly was able to actually run real
(although simple) Commodore-64 programs. Speed seems to be around 0.5x
real-time on my machine.

The py65 library also already provides a simple machine code monitor
(assembler/disassembler) that you can use to inspect or write the
machine code in the C64's memory. With some effort it should be possible
to run it in the emulated screen, but for now, interaction with it is
done on the console prompt.

It was a great deal of fun integrating this into my project and I found
it quite spectacular to see some existing Commodore-64 programs actually
running unaltered.  Even when they're doing nothing more than changing
the screen colors and unpacking an image. At half speed. But still :-)


Irmen