Wolfgang Lorenz decided to stop the development and sales of PC64. The source code is now available for free from ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/cbm/crossplatform/emulators/pc64/.
The last version of PC64Dos released by Wolfgang Lorenz is 1.22. There are no shareware restrictions in this version.
There is also a beta version of PC64 that runs under Windows on 486 (Pentium 100 or faster recommended). Wolfgang stopped its development while he was working on version 2.15.
For testing the emulator, you can download some C64 games that were friendly published by the German 64'er magazine. The games should be extracted with "pkunzip -d" to get the original directory structure.
With Personal C64 you can execute your old C64 programs on the PC. Currently almost all applications work, and 85% of the games run as well. Programs with built-in disk speeders and copy protected software (like Geos) won't work until in version 2.0.
You need an IBM compatible PC with 486DX2-66 processor. Personal C64 runs also on a 386, but not at original speed. In addition, the program requires a VGA display adapter. Because of performance, the graphics card should be on a VLB or PCI bus. When it comes to the operating systems, you can choose between DOS, Windows, OS/2, Windows NT and Linux with DOSEmu.
After starting the emulator, you land in an user interface. It runs in DOS text mode and will be used just like Windows. That is, you can open several windows at once and use the context sensitive help with F1.
Personal C64 also has a built-in file manager that displays the C64 programs with their 16 character long filenames. On the left side you navigate through a directory three, and the file list is on the right side. To start a C64 program, double click the wanted filename or press Enter.
Multi-part games work too, as long as you don't use any disk speeder. With F9 you can change disks on the emulated C64.
In the shareware version the C64 joysticks will be emulated with the arrow keys, and you can fire with the right Control key. In the registered version you can also use external IBM and even C64 joysticks.
Programmers will be especially interested in the recording function that records every executed processor instruction. Whenever an instruction accesses the I/O registers, it will be commented.
Because the 5¼ inch floppy in the PC cannot read GCR coded 1541 disks, the registered version of the emulator includes a cable between the PC's printer port and the User port of a real C64 or C128. This C64 works then as a server and its floppies will be shown in the file manager. By pressing F8 you can copy single files between the two systems, and whole diskettes can be copied with Alt+F8. Disk images will be transfered with a floppy speeder that copies a disk side in 1:40 minutes. The transfers are disabled in the unregistered version.