PCVIC - Upgrade your PC to a VIC-20!

Project started: 31 Jul 1996
Latest emulator version: V1.19/Mark 33F, 2 Aug 1998
Last page update: 2 Aug 1998

Stop the Europe software patent law!

System requirements:

PC-compatible, RiscPC Intel board, Amiga 8086 bridgeboard (slow). To run it at full Vic-20 speed, you will need a 25 Mhz AT or a 20 Mhz 386SX. To run it at full video rendering and frame rate as well, you will need a 40Mhz 386DX.
Supports both standard and advanced keyboards.
Register-compatible EGA or VGA card or emulation. Archimedes RISCPC users can run it in a window. Windows users should run it full-screen.
DOS-compatible operating system (PC-DOS, MS-DOS, DR DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows NT, etc.).

Features:

Timer-controlled to run at proper Vic-20 speed on fast machines.
Autodetect RAM expansion/multiple-file ROM image for easy running; Runs 8K and 16K ROM programs, and Unexpanded, 3K, 8K, 16K, 24K RAM-type programs. 27K expansion is also supported.
Save and restore system snapshot. Snapshots are compressed to save disk space.
Two different screen sizes and screen panning to support Vic-20 programs that use large screen modes.
Supports Vic-20 paddles, light pen and joystick.
Vic-20 keyboard layout can be viewed by pressing [F8]. Hurry-up key is [F4].
Menu driven interface.
Sound (PC-speaker or Adlib): Interrupt-driven sound for correct speed on all machines, but can also be set to produce sound without interrupts. Has two different PC-speaker modes. Voices can be turned off individually.
Built-in screen grabber.
Simple register dump now available.
Improved emulation since 1.0. Fixed some bugs, including a BCD bug, better I/O emulation, screens with more than 30 columns supported, inverted mode implemented. Avenger, Gold Fever, Bagdad, IFR flight sim, Mountain King, Fourth Encounter, Centipede, AE, Blondell, Omega Race, Battlefield, Krell, Donkey Kong, Star Defence, Ms Pacman now work 100%.
Now supports joystick!

NEWS

PCVIC 1.19 Beta is now available! I've had mixed reports when using the joystick in Windows '95, but I've released it anyway because I've waited with the release long enough, and I'm going on vacation tomorrow. The main new feature is joystick support with experimental slow movement emulation.

PCV System snapshot specifications now available.

Version 1.14 is now available. I have found a video mode setup bug, present in all previous versions of PCVIC, the result of a wrong interpretation of a BIOS function. It results in garbage (stripes + blinking characters) on some video BIOSes. I first thought this was a register compatibility problem, but I finally found a proper test case and have been able to examine the problem more closely.

Changes since Version 1.13:

Video setup bug fixed
Improved screen freeze on [F6]. Bandits is now playable.

Changes since V1.12B:

Fixed a couple of small bugs in 1.12B
Better I/O emulation: Krell and Atarisoft games now respond to all keys.
Extra memory expansion option.
register dump.

Right now I'm working on joystick support. I've finally got my hands on a working gameport and joystick. Sorry for everyone who's been waiting for this; my time has been short, since I've been busy finishing my studies at last. With a bit of luck, though, I'll take a vacation next month; I should be able to take a few days off to finish joystick support. As soon as I have anything that works, I will release it. Right after that, I wish to include:

Customizable controls: Auto fire, Fire lock, use joystick as paddle, etc.
Extra autoload features
Some small refinements in the user interface, such as an individual configuration file for each program and a way to start programs without undelete.

I've also found out that switching between the Vic screen and the menus sometimes causes irritating clicking on some modern monitors. I will try to remedy this asap by (optionally) using a special video mode for the menu screens.

The emulator

PCVIC119.ZIP. Newest (beta) version 1.19. Joystick support. Some small cycle bugs fixed. PCV specifications included.
PCVIC114.ZIP. Video setup bug fixed. Improved screen freeze.
PCVIC113.ZIP. Even more bugfixes. Register dump.
PCVIC112.ZIP. Beta version. Some extra features and bugfixes
PCVIC110.ZIP. Official sound version
PCVIC110.ZIP. Alternative link

You will also need the Vic-20 system ROMs to use the emulator:

VICROMS.ZIP

You can also find them on ftp.funet.fi.

If that doesn't work for you, here are some old versions:

PCVIC105.ZIP. Beta sound version.
PCVIC100.ZIP. Old version, no sound.

If you want to know where to get programs, check out the links section. If you have questions or problems concerning downloading stuff or Vic20<->DOS transfer, take a look at the section on file transfer.

PCV snapshot specifications

PCVSP100.ZIP Specifications version 1.00. The ZIP contains the following files: pcvhead.txt and pcvdump.txt.

Joystick support not working?

If PCVIC's native joystick support somehow won't work, there are some programs that are able to map joystick movement onto keyboard events.

JOYKEYS 1.21, JOYKEYS 1.41, JOYKEYS homepage, by Bret Johnson. Sample batch file (rename to *.BAT) for use with PCVIC. However, some problems have been reported with JOYKEYS 1.21: it doesn't work with PCVIC's higher sound qualities, and refuses to work together with some programs that also use the TOD. It is possible that the new version 1.41 solves some of these problems (sorry; haven't tried this out).
JOYEMU homepage by Simone Zanella. This one is reported to work fine in some cases JOYKEYS didn't, but I haven't been able to try this out either. However, while JOYKEYS works on just about any PC, the system requirements as listed in JOYEMU are pentium or higher (I've no idea why...).

Boris van Schooten

Send suggestions/comments to:

vicman@dds.nl