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Pete Brown is a Microsoft Developer Division Community Program Manager, focusing on Windows Client Development as well as a former Microsoft Silverlight MVP and INETA Speaker. Pete writes on a number of topics including Silverlight, WPF, .NET, woodworking and working as a consultant in the DC area. read more

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My MIX09 Silverlight 3 ShowOff Video – Commodore 64 Emulator

At this year’s MIX, for the first time, I submitted a ShowOff video. The topic was my Silverlight 3 C64 emulator. Given the nature of the topic, I couldn’t release the video until after the Silverlight 3 announcements.

Here’s a small version of the showoff video. I captured the video using Camtasia (great software for capturing desktop video) and then edited it using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. That was my first time using Premiere – a great and powerful program.

Showoff Video Link

The music is by Miguel F Ettema and is a remix of both the Dr. Who theme and the old Second Reality demo – the first real demo I saw on my old DOS PC. You can read more and download the music here. The voice at the end is a sample from the classic C64 game by Epyx: Impossible Mission.

Hope you like it. We’ll know the results of the ShowOff competition probably sometime later this week.

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Posted: Saturday, March 21, 2009 7:35 PM by Pete.Brown

Comments

Samiq said:

Awesome work man!!
# March 22, 2009 12:06 AM

Pete.Brown said:

@Samiq thanks!

# March 22, 2009 12:21 AM

Rob Zelt - Lighting Up The Web said:

# March 22, 2009 2:39 PM

Michael Swanson said:

Extremely cool! I saw this at MIX09 and, I'm very impressed. I loved the C-64! :-)
# March 22, 2009 10:04 PM

Pete.Brown said:

Thanks Mike!

Pete

# March 22, 2009 11:13 PM

Randy said:

dang ole dang ole man I tell you what. This blog is really something a long ole html page like when the first ever web pages were built. A whole bunch of twits and face idiots. DOS is going to make a big comeback I'm sure. Music with no melody and no originality here. I'm sure PONG is a big advancement also. Even the hip hoppers and rappers are saying it's time to get back to originality and original melodies. What a bunch of crap here. Does Silverlight 3 having decent fonts? I would like fonts that look as nice as they did on a 1980's Atari. Can you show a video without having to download it and then find it and then double click on it. Let's have a little originality and some creativity like back in the 60's. I haven't programmed with punch cards since the 70's you think I should get my old manuals out build something on an IBM 360 or a Honeywell 2000 with tape drives.
# March 23, 2009 1:32 PM

Pete.Brown said:

@Randy

Lol, great comments. Love your site. 1995 called and they want their template back.

Do you make a habit of writing things like this on all the MVP/RD blogs? I noticed your earlier post on Rocky's blog and couldn't stop laughing at the irony.

Pete

# March 23, 2009 7:04 PM

John Bruin said:

Wow Pete! This is really unbelievable! I cannot wait to play our old Paradize C64-demos in Silverlight! It would be so cool to also have a SID-player with the mobile version of Silverlight later this year!
# March 24, 2009 11:34 AM

Greg Neilson said:

That is truly fantastic - both the demo video you've made there and the emulator itself. Great work! I'm curious - how clean or hacky is the code for the emulator? Something like this is probably not the run-of-the mill silverlight app - did you have to employ some dirty tricks to get stuff to work the way you wanted?
# March 25, 2009 6:47 AM

Pete.Brown said:

@Greg

The code is really really ugly. The reasons basically boil down to:

1. The original code was really ugly, even for C++.

2. I was learning as I was porting it from C++/C# full clr

3. The original code used TONS of pointers and almost every method was marked unsafe. I had to make that all use arrays. I did it enough to get it working, but performance isn't where I want it to be (CPU usage is fairly high). I know what the issues are (too many array copies) but just need to set aside time to fix them.

Other than pointers, the ugliness really had nothing to do with the platform. It's amazing just how capable SL3 is as a plugin in a browser.

Pete

# March 26, 2009 10:20 AM

Daniel Auger said:

All I can say is WOW! Any chance you'll release the source after you get a chance to clean it up? It would be pretty fascinating to look over the port IMHO.
# March 26, 2009 8:00 PM

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen said:

# March 26, 2009 11:40 PM

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen said:

# March 26, 2009 11:42 PM

Microsoft Weblogs said:

My one-hundred-and-fifty-fifth podcast is up . Scott digs deep with Pete Brown about the Commodore 64
# March 26, 2009 11:54 PM

Pete.Brown said:

For everyone interested in the source, visit http://silverlightC64.codeplex.com keep in mind that it is "lab quality" code right now. :) If you want to contribute (especially designers who want to do a C64 keyboard or a nice-looking skin for the app), please do. Pete
# March 27, 2009 12:15 AM

ASPInsiders said:

My one-hundred-and-fifty-fifth podcast is up . Scott digs deep with Pete Brown about the Commodore 64
# March 27, 2009 12:34 AM

Geoffrey Braaf said:

Ok, I'm in awe! Actually your closing the loop for many developers among us. We started out with the VIC20, C=64, and many than logically moved on to Amiga's (next project?). Now your using state of the art technology to bring back that sentiment. Thanx!
# March 27, 2009 5:00 AM

Steve said:

Sweet! I actually still HAVE my WORKING C=64. At least I *think* it still works--it's been in the basement for a few years in a box that I won't let my wife touch! Thanks for bringing back some great memories! The C=64 is how I got my start in software development!
# March 27, 2009 8:40 AM

Ted Kolovos said:

This is great work. What was the most rewarding part of doing this and what was your favorite C64 game?
# March 27, 2009 11:53 AM

Pete.Brown said:

@Ted

The most rewarding thing was when after a ton of iterations of nothing, I was surprised to get the C64 Ready prompt and blinking cursor. Seeing that really pumped me up.

Favorite C64 games were 7 Cities of Gold (that game was the first time I heard music come out of a computer and I was just amazed), Ultima IV, Lands of Lore, Adventure Construction Set, Impossible Mission, and some others. Played a lot of gold box D&D too. None of the above work in the emulator just yet :)

Pete

# March 27, 2009 1:39 PM

POKE 53280,0: Pete Brown's Blog said:

At and around MIX I managed to get into a couple shows to talk about my work in Silverlight 3. Hanselminutes
# March 27, 2009 3:17 PM

Pete.Brown said:

Here's the URL for the person who developed the C# port of Frodo, which I used as the starting point for my port to Silverlight.

http://aussiebloke.blogspot.com/2006/08/sharp-64-commodore-64-emulator-in-c.html

He's done a C++ port to the iphone recently too. Cool stuff :)

Pete

# March 28, 2009 12:25 AM

DAn said:

Hi I got a error. "Device not present error"
# April 7, 2009 2:27 PM

Pete.Brown said:

@DAn

You'll get that if you try to load from the disk, but haven't opened up a .d64 file

The C64 thinks no drive is attached.

Pete

# April 8, 2009 2:40 AM

Matt said:

Wonderful! But my question is: is it possible to play with your emulator code? Is it possible to download it? Thx anyway!
# April 28, 2009 3:55 PM

Pete.Brown said:

@Matt Yes, as mentioned in the comments above (I really need to edit the post to have the link) you can get the code at http://silverlightC64.codeplex.com Pete
# April 28, 2009 4:42 PM

VBandi's blog said:

In early May, I gave a talk about the new features in Silverlight 3. As I’ve started to gather material
# May 3, 2009 6:42 AM

Joe Bucci said:

Yep, I STILL have a couple of 64's. One system is like brand new and in the original boxes. I stayed with the C64, with the help of GEOS, WELL into the 90's. I'd say, '94-'95... I finally conceded, and bought an IBM386 on sale ($899.00) with Win3.1 on it. Almost immediately, Win95 came out! then, 98, 98se, XP, Vista, 7,..... Whatever is next.. MORE sloppy, bloated code with MASSIVE hardware requirements. Unfortunately, the Devil we need. I miss the C64. JB
# June 10, 2009 1:24 PM

Sean Lijek said:

I have a Commodore 64 and a Commodore SX-64, which is basically a portable C64. I also have a VIC-20 and a C128.
# July 17, 2009 4:54 AM

Code Capers said:

The Commodore 64 Emulator In Silverlight
# December 18, 2009 11:23 AM
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