First shot

Configuring the emulator proved to be a little bit difficult. The information I found regarding this was rather vague and different sources did not seem to describe the same problem. Finally I resorted to just firing up the system to see what happened. What I found was that there seemed to be very little that needed doing. I told the system to use my keyboard for the time being, since I have no joystick at hand to connect to my adapter (it has arrived!). After this I could choose among a few emulators but since I had no ROMs (game files) all I could do was starting a few ported gamed that were availible. That worked fine, so I did some reading to find out how to transfer game files to the Raspberry. I chose to activate samba sharing of the game file directories and connect the system to my local network. Transferring a few games was then as simple as dragging and dropping the files into the C64 game file directory. I had a few game files (disk images) that I have kept from my C64 collection of old. From what I have read it may be possible to find game files in other ways if you are prepared to be a little bit "creative".

Using the game files it was very easy to get the games working. First I thought it had all frozen, but then I turned off "true disk speed", which made loading a LOT quicker. I had forgot how slow the C64 disk drive was! After configuring Vice (the C64 emulator) to use the keyboard as joystick I could finally actually play a game. The C64 games I tried worked perfectly, as far as I could see. When I tried an Amiga game it worked as long as I did not press the fire button. When I did the game restarted, which of course made it unplayable.

I have now also bought a game pad to use until I come home and can use a real joystick. It is a NES controller, and although not very 64-ish it gives a much better experience than using the keyboard. Attaching the game pad made it work with a minimum of configuration work. I have also added heat sinks to all major chips on the Raspberry. This is just in case I find the need for overclocking. To make space for the heatsinks I had to do some cutting in the box. This was also surprisingly simple and took only half an hour, despite being rather careful.

What needs to be done now is configuring the system so that no configuring is needed during everyday operation. I want my wife to be able to just start the system and play the games she is fond of, which will not be possible if you need to open the Vice config system. A related thing is the need for a reset button so that you can leave Vice and return to where you choose the game to play without having to give commands to Vice. But all in all it has worked very well so far. I am very happy. :-)