The Commodore 64's popularity has resulted in a number of emulators for PCs, Amigas and X Windows. Many of these emulators have since been ported to Macintosh, and several Macintosh-only emulators have proven to be high-quality emulators as well.
 | Power64 4.9.3. |
 | Power64 online via Kagi. |
Power64 is currently one of the most complete Commodore 64 emulators around. It runs at full speed on any Power Macintosh computer, even with sound support! It also allows you to instantiate multiple Commodore processes simultaneously, so you could theoretically be playing two games at once (yes, it's a dubious feature). Power64 is very fast without sacrificing compatibility. A Carbonized version for use with Mac OS X is now available.
 | the Power64 Home Page. |
| sample Commodore 64 software for use with Power64. |
| the Power64 compatability page. |
 | of Power64 running several Commodore titles simultaneously. |
 | to Roland Lieger, author of Power64. |
| Frodo/MacOS 4.3.9. Requires Mac OS X 10.4. |
| Emulator Enhancer, which adds extra features to Frodo/MacOS. |
| Frodo/MacOS online via Kagi. |
Frodo is a solid Commodore 64 emulator which has finally been ported to the Mac. It is very close to Power 64, but is slightly different in a few areas which make it unique. It also supports full-screen mode, a feature which I think every emulator should support.
| the Frodo/MacOS Home Page. |
| to Richard Bannister, author of the Macintosh port of Frodo. |
| VICE 1.19 for OS X (10.3+) (more recent than version 2.3 below). |
| Arthur's Commodore 64 VICE 2.3. |
| VICE for 68K 2.3, a modified version which works on 680x0 platforms. |
The current version of VICE emulates the C64, the C128, the VIC20, all the PET models (except the SuperPET 9000), the PLUS4 and the CBM-II (aka C610). Although this port of VICE requires a lot of processing power and RAM to be fully appreciated, the results are well worth it; the emulation accuracy is quite precise, and with the sound patch, sound is supported.
| the source code for VICE 1.16 (most recent version). |
| a patch to enable sound in VICE 1.16. |
| the source code of Commodore 64 VICE 2.3 (Classic). |
| the VICE Home Page to learn more about C64 emulation. |
| to Arthur Choung, who ported VICE. |
| to Keith Miller, who made VICE for 68K. |
| Mac64 0.4. |
Mac64 was one of the first C64 emulators for Macintosh. The graphics support is pretty mediocre and there is no sound. Mac64 has been outclassed by other emulators by now, but it is still an interesting toy.
| to Earle Philhower, who wrote Mac64. |
| SIDPlay 3.3, for Mac OS X 10.3 and later. |
| SIDPlay 3.1.2, for Mac OS X 10.2.x. |
| SIDPlay 3.0.2, for Mac OS X 10.1.x. |
SIDPlay emulates the sound chip of the Commodore 64, known as the SID 6581, and some basic 6510 functionality. Nothing else. What good is that? Well, some ingenious hackers have managed to pack up audio data from old Commodore 64 games and load them into SIDPlay, thus turning this emulator into a nostalgic version of SoundTracker.
| the Macintosh SIDPlay Home Page. |
| High Voltage, a site containing music data for SIDPlay. |
| to Andreas Varga, author of SIDPlay. |
| SIDekick 1.1, for Mac OS X. |
SIDekick is a Cocoa-based SID player for Mac OS X. It features a mixer, filters, playlists and even an export function.
| the SIDekick home page. |
| to Axel Wefers, author of SIDekick. |
| the GameBase 64 for OS X Web Page. |
GameBase 64 for OS X is a Commodore 64 emulator front-end for Mac OS X that utilizes the Gamebase64 database. The Gamebase64 database contains information on over 15,000 Commodore 64 games!
