Andy Chase

Every once in a while I'll get misty eyed as I view those 16 colors and listen to those three SID voices.Every once in a while I'll get all nostalgic for my old Commodore 64 computer, head out to the internet, download an emulator and some disk images, and get misty eyed as I view those 16 colors and listen to those three SID voices. Then I get frustrated because I don't have a joystick, and forget about my small C64 emulation setup until the next time... it either gets lost in a sub-sub-directory on a current partition, or lost altogether when I reformat a drive.

On a tip from a friend I checked out www.c64.com, which led me to an emulator I'd never tried before, CCS64. Support for Cartridges, multiple virtual 1541 drives, all kinds of goodies.

One game that I was never able to find in emulator form was Gateway To Apshai, but happily I found it tonight - the version I found seems to be from a floppy disk, but I had it as a cartridge - the first game (of many) my parents ever bought me for the Commodore.

Beach Head soon followed, as did Fort Apocalypse and other favorites suddenly remembered as I scrolled through the listings... and I haven't even looked at 1/4 of them yet.
Only problem is, I really need a joystick to get back into this stuff. Fortunately, it looks like joysticks are cheap on e-bay. Of course, if the kids selling their old joysticks on Ebay treated them anything like my brother and I treated ours (Decathalon, anyone?) I would probably be better off buying a new one.