Vic emulation on Windows CE

[Jeff-20]

I have an old but fun HPC with Win CE 2.11. It's a Mobile PRo 780. In the past, I had a C64 emulator for my win ce 2.0 device.

I was wonering how difficult/easy it would be to convert something like this to a VIC 20 emu. I know nothing about emulation. I realize it is more that just switching the rom files... Anyone ever try to convert one emulator to another with similar systems?

[carlsson]

I also don't know or can't find any VIC-20 emulator for Windows CE. Since the custom chips to be emulated are relatively different (and they need to be emulated with code, not just plugging in a ROM image), I think it may be easier to find out how CE differs from the other Win32 versions and see how an existing VIC-20 emulator like (Win)VICE would compile on CE - probably not at all without a lot of reworking, or otherwise it would already exist.

Of course, there is a VIC-20 simulator for the C64 which you could use inside the C64 emulator, but it is much limited and doesn't even try to honour the screen resolution (more than 22x23 characters).

[Jeff-20]

(I am typing this on my hpc now!)

I had never heard of a vic emu on the c64. How does it replicate the vic without the visual cues? Does it just limit the memory and/or alter the poke locations? I am curious.

[carlsson]

Yes, it pretty much maps virtual POKEs to other places and AFAIK only handles Basic programs. It was a COMPUTE! MLX listing, which gives you an idea of the age and complexity. I think a dedicated production today would be able to be much more exact, but I don't know who from the C64 scene both can deal with the concept of emulation, the fact that VIC-20 exists and the commitment to spend time to make a in-between emulator which will at best be 85%.

C64 executable from COMPUTE! (LOAD ,8,1 : SYS 49152 to start) :
http://www.mds.mdh.se/~dal95acn/vicfiles/vic-emu.prg

[ravenxau]

tried the vic-emu.prg emulator inside a version of c64s emulator under win98 booted in dos mode. It seems to work fine including disk access (which i had trouble with under vice). looking forward to trying it on my hardware 128D in 64 mode.

[Rockman]

I would like to first say how amazed I am to find an underground VIC 20 group.
After searching for rom’s I came across this little gem.

Thanks to the effort of reto programmers I am able to once again enjoy so many of my old games that I had since got rid of (or made to get rid of thanks mum). There’s so many of them, and I think VICE is great, it’s effortless and easy to use.
I get drawn back to the addictive game play of my old Vic.
The retro scene is growing all the time, you just have to check out the sites springing up, and magazines like Retro gamer and Emulate that’s appeared on the shelves over night.
Just goes to prove you can’t beat the simple game play & originality.

Well, although VICE runs well my dream would be to have all my games on a portable game device.
I have looked at Game Park’s GP32 see http://www.gbax.com/gp32review.html.
This would be the ideal as it’s a dedicated game device, inexpensive, and would be up to spec to run an Vic 20 emulator, afterall it supports C64.

Alas I contacted the site above, and there’s currently no support for the Vic.
Does anyone know any different, or any developers out there for the GP32 ?

Alternatively another handheld device could be used like a Pocket PC P/PC or Handheld PC H/H PC.
Pocket 64 is a Commodore 64 emulator that runs on a Pocket PC.

But I haven’t found any Vic emulator’s out there,
So I looked into using VICE on a P/PC or H/H PC.
As VICE needs M/S DOS, a program called Pocket DOS would emulate the MS DOS environment and therefore allow VICE to work. See http://www.pocketdos.com/

Pocket PC requires A Handheld PC, Handheld PC Professional, Handheld PC 2000, Palm-sized, Pocket PC or Pocket PC 2002 with: The Microsoft Windows CE, Pocket PC, Pocket PC 2002, or Handheld PC 2000 Operating System. A Hitachi SH3, Hitachi SH4, MIPS-compatible, ARM or StrongARM CPU. At least 600Kb free program memory. At least 800Kb free storage.

Does anyone know if VICE would work through this ?
These are the specs:

CPU emulation:
 Intel 80188/80186
Memory:
 256Kb - 736Kb (adjustable) base memory
 Allows up to 724Kb free Conventional Memory for DOS programs. *
 0Kb - 240Kb (adjustable) Upper Memory Block (UMB) memory.
 Up to 16Mb Expanded Memory (L.I.M. EMS 3.2)
 Virtual memory (only RAM that is used is allocated)
* depends on DOS version
IBM CGA/VGA emulation :
 40x25 Colour or Grayscale text
 80x25 Colour or Grayscale text (1)
 320x200 4 Colour or Grayscale Graphics Mode
 640x200 Monochrome Graphics Mode (2)
 320x200 16 Colour Graphics Mode
 640x200 16 Colour Graphics Mode (1)
 640x350 Monochrome Graphics Mode (1)
 640x350 16 Colour Graphics Mode (1)
 640x480 Monochrome Graphics Mode (1)
 640x480 16 Colour Graphics Mode (1)
 320x200 256 Colour Graphics Mode (3)
1 compressed on displays < 480 pixels wide
2 compressed on displays < 640 pixels wide
3 monochrome on displays with < 16 bit colour
HP Palmtop INT5F emulation :
 640x200 Monochrome Graphics Mode (1)
1 compressed on displays < 640 pixels wide. Accelerated with Win32 GDI functions.
IBM PC/XT harware emulation:
 Keyboard emulation (83 keys)
 Programmable Interrupt Controller (PIC) emulation
 Programmable Timer (PIT) emulation
 Serial port (UART) emulation
 Parallel port emulation
 PC speaker emulation
 180Kb, 360Kb, 720Kb, 1.2Mb, 1.44Mb, 2.88Mb INT13 Floppy disk emulation
 1.3Mb-71Mb INT13 Hard disk emulation
 INT13 access to Hard disk devices (eg. CompactFlash card)
OS compatibility:
 Compatible with Datalight ROM-DOS v6.22 (included)
 Compatible with all versions of MS-DOS (up to v6.22)
 Compatible with all versions of Caldera OpenDOS and DR-DOS (up to v7.03)
 Compatible with all versions of PTS-DOS (up to v6.70)
 Compatible with CEDOS v1.0
 Compatible with MS-Windows v3.0
 Compatible with GEOS
 Compatible with several non-DOS operating systems
ROM BIOS emulation:
 Native ROM BIOS to increase speed.
 All standard BIOS interrupts are emulated, including keyboard, comms, printer, disks and video.
Mouse emulation:
 Built-in DOS mouse driver for stylus or other pointing device.
COM port emulation:
 Serial ports, modems and IR ports can be used as COM1 & COM2 from emulation.
LPT port emulation:
 LPT1 port can be redirected to a serial, parallel, IR or network printer.
Windows CE file system access:
 DOS driver and utilities to allow access to the Windows CE file system through DOS drive letters.
 Windows CE file system driver to allow direct access to hard disk devices (eg. CompactFlash card).

I would imagine running VICE within PC DOS would slow the VIC20 performance, so a straight VC20 emulator on a handheld device would be best. Thoughts ??