This message is in response to the Many inquiries I receive asking How Do I run C64 games on my PC or similarly related questions. And in response to How can I transfer my C64 programs to my PC for use on an emulator & How do I connect my 1541/1571 disk drive to my PC & what software should I use etc. I regret that I'm unable to individually answer all such questions on their own merit as I'm too busy uploading files to the net & maintaining 3 sites, studying and trying to live a social life however!!!. (1) Simply stated to run C64 programs / games on your PC you will need of the many Commodore Emulators available at one of the sites noted below, in most cases they're free and don't require any very special skills to optimize them for use with most pc's however reasonable performance usually demands a 75mhz machine or higher with 16 meg of ram or so for fair performance under Windows. Some Emulators run OK on lesser machines under Dos however. (2) Software by way of Commodore image files in their many formats can be obtained from many and varied sources. Start looking at the links pages on one of my sites for these if You can't find what you want at my actual FTP Request sites. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/2102/ my Geocities site http://www2.fortunecity.com/skyscraper/cable/191/index.html my Fortune City site http://xenios.qldnet.com.au/~cocosoft/welcome.html my Australian site (Closing Soon) Please Bookmark Geocities & Fortune Cities sites as Aus. site will be closing when I find a new server that I'm happy with. (3) How to actually run the games etc. on whatever emulator you decide to try can only properly be learned by laboriously reading all the documentation that comes with the emulator when You download it. Read all. doc & .txt type files you possibly can then read them as many times as necessary till You understand how to properly run Your particular Emulator. No single emulator can run all programs so it is often necessary to have 3 or 4 different ones to cover most games, programs etc. and all have different operating procedures although most are very similar. (4) Transferring Your own programs to the PC is accomplished with programs such as STAR-COMMANDER by Joe Forster and available at http://www.fairlight.to as well as many other locations. This is the only program that I recommend as it has served me very well on several different computers, clock speeds etc. Learning to use this program is the same as learning to use the Emulators above. Read All Documentation thoroughly till you are sure you understand what You are doing. It is possible to delete files from Your PC and do other mischief if You don't watch what You are doing with this program but it really does do the job of transferring files from the Commodore disk drive to the PC very well. (5) You're still not out of the woods as You require 1 more item, the hardware component. An X1541 cable is needed. This device connects your Commodore disk drive serial port to Your PC parallel port (usually only functions on LPT1) These can be ordered through various sources on the web. To find who is selling them do a search for +"X1541"+cable or similar search till You find a supplier close to Your location. I will make & send anywhere in the world for $45:00 Aust. upon receipt of an order and cheque or money order as payment, Delivery times allow 21 days If You wish to order a cable made up e-mail me in advance at cocosoft@qldnet.com.au or cocosoft@usa.net and let me know your return delivery details, I'll respond with my postal address for payment etc. (6) Below are 3 url's where I go to find Emulators, Star Commander & other Commodore Resources. If You're feeling brave the end of page contains details on how to construct Your own X1541 cable. This is the circuit diagram I use to construct mine. If You proceed to make Your own be extremely careful as 1 wire or wire strand out of place can fry your PC for You and I accept NO RESPONSIBILITY regarding misinterpretation of the circuit diagram, plain bad workmanship, or any other element which results in the unit either not working or causing damage to any hardware device whatsoever. The diagram below is as it was downloaded from the net and as stated earlier the one I personally use. (7) Finally, I hope this has gone some way to answering some of the questions to which it is directed, good luck & lots of fun with Your C=64-PC combo. 4 URL'S WHERE YOU SHOULD FIND THE NECESSARIES http://hem.passagen.se/bacchus/tools/pc.html emulators and much more http://members.aol.com/chrissalo/ emulators http://www.jbrain.com/caboom/ 1 stop Commodore links site http://www.fairlight.to INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE X1541 CABLE CONSTRUCTION FOLLOW by GHIELMET@eldi.epfl.ch (Leopoldo Ghielmetti) The X1541 program requires an adapter cable to connect your PC parallel printer port (LPT1/LPT2/LPT3) and a Commodore disk drive (1541/1581). *(The Female port pinouts are shown below. The normal cable is Male-Male.) CBM IEEE serial port *Female*: IBM Lpt port *Female*: ___ ___ ,-----, .- - -. Strobe--+-1* '---, .- -. _____ | *14+--AutoFeed Data--+--*5 1*--+--SrqIn _____ (Data 0)| 2*-, | ( 6*------)---------Reset | |_*15|(Error) Clock--+--*4 2*--+---Ground | 3* | ____ ._ 3* _. | *16+--Init .____|____. | 4* | Atn-| | *17+--SelectIn ------------------------------------------- | 5* | | C64signal | IBMsignal Lptport +2 | | 6* *18+-+-Ground | 2 Ground | 18..25 Ground | | | | | 3 Atn | 1 Strobe bit0 | | 7* *19+-| | 4 Clock | 14 AutoFeed bit1 | vvvvvvvvvvv | | 5 Data | 17 SelectIn bit3 | | *25+-+ | 6 Reset | 16 Init bit2 | |13* ,---' ------------------------------------------- '-----' X1541.EXE IBM <--> C64 file reader type "x1541" for the interface scheme (see above) type "x1541 ?" for the options list options are : "/b" force monochrome mode "/c" force color mode "/LPTn" force I/O from LPT port n (n in range 1..3) Activate Menu or to dismiss menu and go to file list Also used to dismiss status boxes (after COPY) Highlight memu or Select menu item Highlight menu or Go back; Highlight previous menu or ( Sub-menu stays screen, but is no longer highlighted) Move between 1541 and IBM filelists Also used move to "OK" in COLOR menu Cursor keys Move through menus & and Move through filelists Select files in filelist for copying 1541-COMMAND Note: command letter (e.g. N0:Test Format,tt) Must be capital letter --^ **** Brief command sequence for file copy ******** 1. OPEN 1541 to select and highlight Drive# sub-menu to select drive number (8-11) 2. OPEN IBM 3. to source filelist 4. selects file(s) 5. for menu 6. COPY 7. to dismiss status box after copy is complete DE NADA Well I forgot to mention it, to make a file with another extension (seq, usr, rel (not yet supported)) you should give the correct extension to the IBM file Eg. *.seq will be transferred as sequential file (seq) In normal condition 1581 and 1571 have the same mechanism as 1541 but for lack of documentation I did not implement the fast serial mode feature. ciao, Leopoldo /**************************************\ * Ghielmetti Leopoldo * \**************************************/*****\ * e-mail : ghielmet@eldi.epfl.ch * \************************************/ Posting and docs by bjh@linc.att.com I regret that my further responses to inquiries regarding these same questions will be met by Resending this message and advise to contact the comp.emulators.cbm newsgroup for more detailed questions re emulators which is best etc.etc. so please contact one of the commodore newsgroups listed on one of my links page for more detailed answers to Your questions. Once again Good Luck & Regards Bob Cohen questions