
Internet Archive is adding in-browser emulation support for Commodore 64 - mariuz
https://twitter.com/textfiles/status/1048017789884067840
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tombert
Maybe someone with better legal chops can explain this to me; how is the
Internet Archive's internet arcade MAME stuff not considered piracy? I'm not
saying I don't support it (I think data preservation is important, even if it
involves "piracy"), but it seems like a huge legal headache to a lay-man.

~~~
ISV_Damocles
From the Internet Archive FAQ: [0]

> The Internet Archive (Archive.org) is a nonprofit library that preserves
> digital cultural artifacts, and provides online access to over a million
> users a day with the goal of universal access to all knowledge.

Since it's a library, it has special copyright exceptions that make their
emulation efforts legal, as Section 108 was updated to allow libraries to
circulate digital copies of material online and off-premises. [1]

So it would have been a huge legal headache if they hadn't been given the
explicit exception to do this.

Edit: oh, caveat that IANAL, but this was what was explained to me on another
forum thread a couple of years ago when they first started their emulation
efforts.

[0]: [https://archive.org/about/faqs.php](https://archive.org/about/faqs.php)

[1]:
[https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/8932/96...](https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/8932/9652)

~~~
comex
Judging by [1], I'm pretty sure updating section 108 is still a proposal.

In this case, my impression is that the Internet Archive is basically ignoring
copyright law and hoping nobody complains, relying on the lack of commercial
value in such obsolete software, and to a small extent the moral high ground
our society assigns to libraries.

[1] [https://www.districtdispatch.org/2017/09/copyright-office-
re...](https://www.districtdispatch.org/2017/09/copyright-office-releases-
draft-bill-change-section-108/)

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Retroity
The Internet Archive has been doing great work lately, between backing up
arcade machines, to Winamp skins, and now this in addition to all the other
cultural works they've backed up. I highly encourage donating if you have the
extra cash.

~~~
sp332
If you want a specific project to donate to,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17641600#17645168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17641600#17645168)
They digitized a huge pile of product flyers and ads for tech products that
have been sent to Ted Nelson over the decades. The project is complete and
it's about $440 in the red as of this afternoon.
[https://twitter.com/KevinSavetz/status/1048253063775977472](https://twitter.com/KevinSavetz/status/1048253063775977472)

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th0ma5
It is a little janky on my Pixel 2 XL but my 7 year old self would kick my
butt for complaining. The native emulators work great of course. This is
absolutely astounding that Jason and team are diving head first into these
software collections like this. I think this, while being widely renowned, is
still being undervalued somehow by us all.

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sillyquiet
Man do I get nostalgic for Alternate Reality: The Dungeon and Zork (not
exclusive to C64 owners I know). And making Basic sprites flutter across the
screen... copying programs out of the thick user manual that came with it.

~~~
jerf
If you want to go the legal route, you can still buy Zork:
[https://www.gog.com/game/the_zork_anthology](https://www.gog.com/game/the_zork_anthology)
Usually with infocom collections you can find the Zork game file pretty easily
and run it on any Z-machine interpreter you like, meaning it's incredibly
cross-platform nowadays.

If you want to go the, ah, "less legal" route, it's pretty easy to find copies
of the game file if you search properly.

In some ways, the text adventure games of that era have survived better than
anything else. You can get a modern interpreter and play it on a modern
display, with the computer responding as quickly as you can type, with nice
modern fonts, on any system you like (mac windows linux android ios random
assortment of other platforms), and at the same time, there's basically no
compromise of the original experience. (Unless you _absolutely insist_ that
it's _vital_ that you have to wait a second or two for the computer to respond
to your input, and sluggishly stream the text out.) It's not a "remastering"
or a reimplementation, it's still the original thing, just brought forward in
time.

~~~
crooked-v
Also, for other IF games, see this page for a list of interpreters -
[http://inform7.com/if/interpreters/](http://inform7.com/if/interpreters/) \-
and the IFDB for various freely available games -
[http://ifdb.tads.org](http://ifdb.tads.org)

I particularly like Lost Pig, a short but clever game that runs with the
conceit that the reason the parser is limited is that your character is a
dumb-as-bricks orc looking for (obviously) a lost pig.
[http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=mohwfk47yjzii14w](http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=mohwfk47yjzii14w)

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sehugg
I note that the existing JSMESS emulator supports C64; for what reasons was
VICE chosen?

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LocalH
Likely accuracy, as VICE is one of the most accurate C64 emulators.

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textfiles
Hey, it's Jason.

The VICE emulator is slightly faster than the MAME implementation. We actually
got C64 emulation in MAME working at the Archive, but they're continually
doing improvements and it tends to run at "only" 200% of native speed, which
means that with the javascript/webassembly overhead it dips down below 100% in
anything but the most beefy machines/browsers.

MAME is ALWAYS our go-to. But VICE is a particularly unique case, what with
the quarter-century of development and the intensity of C64-only
considerations they've brought in.

~~~
LocalH
That’s good to hear. I know MAME is fairly rock solid for arcade machines, but
I’ve always felt the dedicated emulators for home computers and consoles have
long outpaced MAME in terms of accuracy and performance. I’m glad that you
were able to make use of one of them to enrich your project.

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krylon
I am already feeling nostalgic! Can't wait to play Turrican again!

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sys_64738
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