May have access to a Comodore 64. Work in todays OS's?

[SyncroScales]

Hi.

I might end up purchasing an old Commodore 64 computer. It only has the Flobby B drive, Monitor, Joysticks and keyboard. So everything runs off of the floppy drive.

My current computer does not have a floppy B drive. I don't know if there are any left. I do have a floppy A drive though.

I was wondering if I can play or transfer the Floppy B discs and Cartridges from the commodore system onto my current computer. Is it possible to hook up the hardware somehow and play, or digitize the analogue material?

Do I need dos-box, an emulator or another type of virtual machine? What kind of programming do I need to know?

Would the flobby B discs be recognized by a current OS? Or run?

This system is on it's last leg, and some of these titles can be saved. The cartridges seem to be what really locks it to the the old Commodore compared to the Floppy B's.

Thanks.

 

[HEXiT]

it depends on the drive you need if its the old 3.5 inch hard case floppys then there may be a chance you can hook 1 up to your pc and read them. i know you can do this with amiga disks with a small adjustment to the floppys boot sector. but if its a 5 and a quarter inch old school 360kb disk. then its unlikely you will be able to hook it up unless you have a really old pc like a 286 which could hand both formats with dos 3.6.
your best bet is just to use the emulator and download the copyright free or shareware editions of old c64 software.

 

[SyncroScales]

Where can I find this c64 or c128 emulator with the free or shareware editions of the old software? I was under the impression Nintendo owned the Commodore games library and was sitting on it. I have emailed them already saying the games need to be available on their Wii virtual machine, but Nintendo sits on them or cannot get people to sign the paperwork.

I can look for the open-sourced emulator and such I found out about on wikipedia.

I thought there was 2 different kinds of floppy drives. This info is good to know. Wasn't it the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 disks had the difference? Commodore 1541-II Floppy Drive, 3rd model, this is the Drive. I can't find info about the sizes.

Would I be able to transfer them myself?

 

[benski]

The commodore 64 floppy drive is 5&1/4" it's the floppy floppy disks not the smaller hard plastic ones.

 

[jaguarskx]

Where can I find this c64 or c128 emulator with the free or shareware editions of the old software?

Have you ever heard of Google?

 

[HEXiT]

http://www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/computer/

 

[SyncroScales]

Google? Yes. I did say "I can look for the open-sourced emulator and such I found out about on wikipedia. ".

Jaguar SKX, I am concerned about some sites since some of those files do not open up and work. They then install other things onto computers. I can find anything, and it's not always a good idea to get it. Sometimes it's better to not even go there...

Any recommendations are always appriciated. Learning how to do things myself are also appriciated, the path is dry even though I can concider the method of set-up. There is no info I know of technically.


Thanks HEXiT.

I am disliking these lawas and bills that are allowing governments, business, authorities and whoever else wants to: To be able to look at what you do whenever, however and whatever without a warrent. Some of these laws or bills have sections mention being able to retroactively look at your info and history from the ISP's.

As an artist I understand that it is important to protect your info and I don't want to be ripped off or violated. It takes work and effort to make something and you deserve something back if people want it. But, there is a certain degree of privacy that is a human right and nobody deserves to be violated.

A just cause and target specific/target accurate actions and intentions are necessary to deal with such unlawful problems. I support that.

 

[HEXiT]

if your not sure about your antivirus and your malware protection then donot download from unknown sites...
i would say stay away from mame emulators but i have used the n64 ps2 and atari emulators without any issues. i tried the mame emulator and some of the apps fired off my antivirus... with legitimate threats... so be careful...

 

[SyncroScales]

Ok. Thanks.

I took a look and saw some sites on the right with games, rather than emulators or apps. Any recommendations or not worth it? I found the freeware ones on the site to test the emulators.

I always scan the files I download before unzipping or installing. I was under the impression that if you log onto a server and let it access your system by choosing to download, that can be the door opening which means the malware protection might not be doing it's best since you said ok.

 

[Maxor1]

You can also just buy a 5.25 internal drive for your newer machine, and use a Sata to IDE cable connection http://floppydisk.com/internal.htm to purchase.... Some OS don't really like the drives but it should see it in bios and from there you can force your OS to see it with enough driver trial and error.

 

[rpg_poser]

There is Mess, which is based off Mame's source. It works fine for C64 games... http://mess.org/
Your'e on your own when it comes to games.

 

[SyncroScales]

I was sure I had seen some floppy B drives on web-sites somewhere and Computers still have Drive A and B assigned to these devices. My floppy a was recognized right away.

So a dos program or dosbox might be able to access older 5.25 floppy discs and play them? I'm using XP and Vista still. Not too sure how Win7 or Win8 would respond to the old hardware and software. People keep talking about Win7 doesn't like the 16-bit installers and they dont work, and how XP mode pretty much runs everything, but it doesn't run everything all the time...

Thanks for the info. I'll check out mess.org and the floppy drive/disc page.

 

[SyncroScales]

Best answer selected by SyncroScales.