VICE
Developer(s)VICE Team
Initial release1993; 31 years ago (1993)
Stable release
3.6.1 / January 24, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-01-24)[1]
Preview release
3.6.2-dev-r42514 / August 16, 2022; 18 months ago (2022-08-16)
Repositorysourceforge.net/projects/vice-emu/
Written inC and GTK+
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, macOS, Linux, MS-DOS, RISC OS, BeOS, QNX, OS/2, Solaris, SunOS, OpenServer, AmigaOS, Dingoo, Syllable Desktop, MiNT, MINIX 3
Size56.3 MB (GTK3VICE-3.6.1-win64)[2]
Available inEnglish, Danish, German, French, Hungarian, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Turkish
TypeEmulator
LicenseGNU GPLv2[3]
Websitevice-emu.sourceforge.io
As of16 August 2022

The software program VICE, standing for VersatIle Commodore Emulator, is a free and cross platform emulator for Commodore's 8-bit computers. It runs on Linux, Amiga, Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, macOS, OS/2, RISC OS, QNX, GP2X, Pandora, Dingoo A320, Syllable, and BeOS host machines. VICE is free software, released under the GNU General Public License since 2004.

VICE for Microsoft Windows (Win32) prior to v3.3 were known as WinVICE,[4][2] the OS/2 variant is called Vice/2, and the emulator running on BeOS is called BeVICE.

History

The development of VICE began in 1993 by a Finnish programmer Jarkko Sonninen, who was the founder of the project. Sonninen retired from the project in 1994.[5]

VICE 2.1, released on December 19, 2008, emulates the Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore VIC-20, Commodore Plus/4, C64 Direct-to-TV (with its additional video modes) and all the Commodore PET models including the CBM-II but excluding the 'non-standard' features of the SuperPET 9000. WinVICE supports digital joysticks via a parallel port driver, and, with a CatWeasel PCI card, is planned to perform hardware SID playback (requires optional SID chip installed in socket).

As of 2004, VICE was one of the most widely used emulators of the Commodore 8-bit personal computers.[6]: 5  It is also one of the few usable Commodore emulators to exist on free Unix-based platforms, including most Linux and BSD distributions.

VICE 3.4 drops support for Syllable Desktop, SCO, QNX, SGI, AIX, OPENSTEP/NeXTSTEP/Rhapsody, and Solaris/OpenIndiana, as well as remaining traces of support for Minix, SkyOS, UNIXWARE, and Sortix, due to lack of staff.

VICE 3.5 drops explicit support for OS/2 and AmigaOS, due to the transition to GTK3 UI.

In December 2022, the VICE emulator was used as an inspiration for an Apple Macintosh emulator powered by a Raspberry Pi.[7]

See also

References

  1. ^ "VICE - the Versatile Commodore Emulator". VICE. 24 January 2022. Archived from the original on 13 August 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2022 – via SourceForge. (24 January 2022) Version 3.6.1 released
  2. ^ a b "VICE - Home / releases / binaries / windows". VICE. 24 January 2022. Archived from the original on 16 August 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2022 – via SourceForge.
  3. ^ "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2". VICE. June 1991. Archived from the original on 12 July 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2022 – via SourceForge.
  4. ^ "Download VICE for Windows systems". VICE. n.d. Archived from the original on 28 June 2022. Retrieved 17 August 2022 – via SourceForge. Binary for MS-Windows 32bit: WinVICE-3.2-x86.7z
  5. ^ "18. Acknowledgments". VICE - the Versatile Commodore Emulator (User Manual). 24 January 2022. Retrieved 16 August 2022 – via SourceForge.
  6. ^ Carless, Simon (1 August 2004). "Chapter 1.2 - Play Commodore 64 Games Without the C-64". Gaming Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media. ISBN 978-0596007140. LCCN 2005281528. OCLC 1156947869. OL 17922666M. Retrieved 16 August 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ "Return of the Mac".

Further reading

External links

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