Vapourware emulator ?

[Blacklord]

I was thumbing through an old mag from 1988 when I spotted this :

"I have just found out that a third C64 emulator is nearly finished, it will be shown around the major hardware companies soon. Called "Card128!" this item is aimed fairly & squarely at Amiga 500 owners who have no memory expansion whatsoever - it plugs under the machine (where an addition memory card is normally installed).

Sporting a Z80 & 6512 CPU, this machine emulates a C64 and C128 with "as near as dammit" software compatibility. There is a port for the 1512 disk drive, the drive controller software is reportedly inside the Amiga.

Naturally this is pure gossip, but rumour has it that Card128! works like MS-DOS on the Amiga 2000, ie it has a window on th Workbench that can act as a task under Intuition! If this is the case, then transferring files from one machine to another should be a cinch".

Questions:

1) was this ever released ?

2) What's a 1512 ?

3) A 6512 was a 6502 with an external clock - surely this couldn't emulate the 8502 as it was only a 1MHz chip ?

[nikoniko]

1) Even if they never got it fully working, or did but never got it to market, that would be an interesting prototype to take a look at, wouldn't it? (Providing it still exists, or ever existed in the first place.) Too bad no company name was given in the article.
2) I suspect they meant 1541, but had 12 stuck on the brain after typing 6512.
3) According to these datasheets, there were a number of 6512 packages that supported 2Mhz.

[wte]

I was thumbing through an old mag from 1988 when I spotted this : [...]

Was it the April issue?

WTE

[Blacklord]

I was thumbing through an old mag from 1988 when I spotted this : [...]

Was it the April issue?

WTE

Nope - YC March 88 actually.

Google has nothing on this thing.

Lance

[wte]

[...] Nope - YC March 88 actually. [...]

March ... is really near to April :oskyldig:
WTE

[nikoniko]

True... but like many other magazines, I imagine the March issue probably came out in February.

BTW, was this some sort of rumors/predictions column? And who wrote it? Maybe we can track down the column author...

[Blacklord]

BTW, was this some sort of rumors/predictions column? And who wrote it? Maybe we can track down the column author...

"Amiga Gossip" - but the author is uncredited.

Lance

[airship]

If I remember right... Sheldon Leemon, probably, if we're talking Amiga World. John Foust if Amazing Computing.

[Blacklord]

If I remember right... Sheldon Leemon, probably, if we're talking Amiga World. John Foust if Amazing Computing.

"Your Commodore" actually.

[smf]

Sporting a Z80 & 6512 CPU, this machine emulates a C64 and C128 with "as near as dammit" software compatibility. There

near as dammit in 88 is probably not as good as you would hope for.

[nikoniko]

I can't remember the names right now, but weren't there were a couple of C64 emulators released during that time? Were they hardware or software based? Were either of them particularly good?

[Blacklord]

I can't remember the names right now, but weren't there were a couple of C64 emulators released during that time? Were they hardware or software based? Were either of them particularly good?

I used the A64 package on my A1000, wasn't too bad, plus it allowed you to connect a 1541 directly to the a1000.

Lance