The fonts in the directory and debugger window are now scalable, to accomodate high-res screens, where 9-point Monaco is simply to hard to read.
Added Support for Gamepads
Minor Bugfix for Joystick Support in MacOS 10.4.9
Improved Mouse Handling for Amica Paint
Improved Timing for Barbarian
Sound Output is broken on some Macs. This used to cause extremly fast emulation in Power64. While the root cause of this bug is still not understood, Power64 now detects the problem and safely falls back to mute emulation.
Power64 sometime had trouble mounting disks via Drag&Drop. This bug has been fixed.
Power64 no longer crashes when drawing screens in black/white mode.
Lots of links in the documentation have been updated/fixed.
Version 4.9.3: (Bugfix Release - March 2006)
Power64 had some trouble unmounting previously the mounted disks, when a new disk image was dragged and dropped onto the emulator window. This has been fixed.
The 'COPY' command of the fast 1541 emulation failed to copy the first 2 bytes of each file. This has been fixed.
Lots of links in the documentation have been updated/fixed.
Version 4.9.2: (Bugfix Release - January 2006)
Fixed a bug that caused menus to become disabled without good cause.
Fixed a bug that caused the Finder to become upset when dragging files from a disk image to the desktop.
The Directory window are now properly updated after a drag.
Mounting Harddisks now uses the shortcut Cmd-Shift-D rather than Cmd-Option-D, since the latter is used to show/hide the dock in MacOS 10.4. Additionally a bug, that caused a single menu shortcut to be assigned to several drives at once has been removed.
The decoder for TAP-files was fitted with tighter restrictions on the amount of tape speed adjustment, so that it will no longer get carried away when a tape has long streams of extremly fast pulses (Supremacy.tap).
Power64 no longer crashes when saving files with wildcards to a floppy disk.
When selecting an item from a menu in Full Screen mode, with an automatically hidden menu bar/dock, it could happen, that the menu bar was hidden while the user was still picking an item. Hiding is now delayed until the user is done making his choice.
Digi-Sounds are now played, even if no 'regular' voice is active.
Most Internet-links in the Help Menu were broken. This has been fixed.
The C64 program "Joystick Demo" has been added. It will display the current state of both C64 joystick ports, and should help users test their joystick configuration.
Version 4.9.1: (Bugfix Release - December 2005)
A bug was fixed that caused keys to become stuck, when the Mac mouse was linked to a C64 sprite in the mouse emulation.
Disk/Tape images, that are loaded from CD-ROMs or other write-protected drives, are now write-protected by default.
Overflows in the VIC scanline counter ($D012) are now handled correctly (Mayhem in Monsterland).
The keyboard is no longer listed as available device in the USB-joystick configuration dialog.
Version 4.9: (October 2005)
When loading RAM-Images, the keyboard and joystick positions are started up in correct position (avoids unwanted movement at loading)
Loading Disk or Tape Images from read-only disk drives (e.g CD-ROMs) now works properly.
A 'Bring all to Front' feature has been added to the Window Menu for MacOS X
When a C64 file, whose name contains 'dangerous characters' (':', '/' or '\'), if copied to the Mac desktop, the dangerous characters are replaced by '-' to avoid confusion of the Mac.
Improvement for the mouse emulation.
A bug where CIA Timer A influenced Timer B has been fixed.
A bug converning the linked mode of the CIA Timers have been fixed.
Timing Problems for NTSC have been fixed
Lightpen Interrupts are now properly triggered via $DC01
The French resources for OS X were missing the submenu for floppy disk #8.
Some minor bugfixes
Version 4.8: (December 2004)
Buttons on USB Joysticks can now be used to emulate keypresses on the C64. This makes gameplay easier for games that use the joystick for general movement and use the keyboard for special features.
The Monitor/Debugger now features a Find-Poke command, that makes it easier to obtain infinite energy and eternal life.
The timing of the serial port of the CIA is now emulated correctly
Emulation of sound sample playback has been improved
It is now possible to completly disable the joystick emulation on the Mac keyboard. This is particulary useful on PowerBooks that have fewer 'spare' keys on their keyboards.
Files on the C64 floppy now maintain their correct file type when being overwritten.
Write protected files are now properly skipped when erasing files from disk.
The timing of the Illegal Opcodes of the M6510 has been improved.
The timing of the VIAs in the floppy disk drive has been improved.
The BAM (Block Allocation Map) of a floppy is only read to floppy memory automatically when full floppy emulation is not enabled.
There now is a color editor, so that everyone can adjust the emulated colors for his own monitor and according to the personal recollection of the 'proper' colors.
The MacOSX edition now has a Window menu, listing all open windows and subwindows as well as a Help menu.
Power64 is now also available in Italian.
The title of C64 windows does no longer become garbled.
A bug has been fixed that caused Power64 to crash when selecting cartridges and tapes.
A bug has been fixed that caused Power64 to crash after sound samples had been recorded.
Some minor bugfixes
Version 4.6: (March 2004)
The Mac Mouse can now be used to emulate a joystick in adventure type games (e.g. ZakMcKracken) that require lots of clicks to form command sentences.
The right shift key of the C64 keyboard is now available as F12 or End on the Mac Keyboard. This makes it possible to play games like Gunship that use the left and right C64 shift key for different purposes on Mac keyboards that do not distinguish between left and right shift keys. The pound and up-arrow keys of the C64 keyboard are now available as F10/F11 to make these symbols accessible too.
Fixed a bug in the floppy emulation that caused trouble when writing to SEQ files.
When changing disks while Full Floppy Emulation is enabled Power64 now simulates a time without a disk in the drive, so that demos that check for read errors to detect empty drives work without trouble.
RAM Snapshots now save completly emulated floppy drives even if there is no disk inserted.
The GEOS detection logic now recognises GEOS 1.x too (used to be only GEOS 2.0)
Bilinear filtering in OpenGL is now again optional.
Skipping every other scanline is now available for tripple and quad size windows too.
Accessing the Floppy VIAs using regular M-R commands now works. There is no good reason to do this, but some programs seem to like it (Comal 0.14)
Fixed a bug that caused interrupts from the CIA to reappear if they were acknowledged within four cycles after they first appeared.
Fixed a bug that caused Power64 to crash when special 'joysticks' (such as an UPS) where connected to the USB.
Files that are dragged & dropped onto a directory window, are now (again) copied onto that drive, instead of switching to a different directory.
Drag&Dropping files from a directory to the C64 now loads the file.
Fixed a terrible bug, that crashed Power64 Classic on some systems (and nobody noticed and told me for 3 month...)
Some minor bugfixes
Version 4.5: (September 2003)
The inner guts of Power64 have been totally rebuilt. While previous Carbon versions of Power64 where just slightly tweeked sideproducts of the Classic version, there is now a Carbon only design. The link format has been changed to Mach-O so that there is now a clear distinction between Classic and OS X (and noone trys to run the Carbon version on OS 9 and is surprised by the absence of Input Sprocket joystick support). Preferences are now stored in (OS X standard) XML files. Please note, that while the main emphasis in the developement of Power64 has been shifted to OS X, the classic MacOS is still supported and has its own version of Power64.
The OS X version of Power64 now uses neat icons with 128x128 pixel.
USB Joysticks are now directly supported in Power64 OS X. USB/ADB joysticks have been supported in Power64 Classic since Power64 1.5, but the OS X lacks Input Sprocket (Apple's Standard for joystick support in Classic MacOS), so this feature was not available in OS X.
Joysticks now have seperate Single-Fire and Auto-Fire Buttons. That way you can easily to produce a single button-press (to switch to the next level) and still fry lots of meanies without hurting your trigger-finger or having to reconfigure the joystick.
OpenGL support is now much faster
Drawing in double or tripple size on screens with thousands and millions of colors is now much faster.
Power64 now offers the option to automatically turn on Turbo Boost whenever a game is loading using full floppy emulation. This help cut down loading times on fast Macs.
Power64 now remembers ten recently used disk/tape images. Changing the disk in a multi-disk game is now just a single mouse click.
All dialogs have been redesigned to comply with Apple's Aqua Human Interface Guidelines. Several old useless options have been discarded.
A problem with the floppy emulation has been fixed (Trouble using direct mode files)
Power64 now presses only one C64-Shift key when Shift is pressed on the Mac keyboard. This is required by the Save-feature of Zak McKracken.
All Menus and Dialogs have Help Tags (Balloon Help is not supported in OS X). Also Help Tags are supposed to be short (according to Apple), I have chosen to suppy long, informative texts.
If the Mac is equipped with a 2(-3) button mouse, the second button of the Mac mouse is used to directly emulate the second button of the C64 mouse. Users of a 1-button mouse can now choose the control-key that they have to press to obtain the second C64 mouse button.
All scroll bars (directory window, debugger) can be controlled using the mouse scroll wheel (assuming your Mac mouse has one).
The quality of the French translation of Power64 is getting worse and worse. While the French localisation is still part of the distribution (both OS X and Classic) it is, by default, no longer enabled (OS X only). Native french speakers who are willing to fix up all the texts that have been neglected over the years are encouraged to contact me.
The Shareware Info window is now resizeable.
Version 4.1.2: (September 2002)
A minor problem with the floppy emulation has been fixed (Trouble in the fast emulation of TalkSec/ListenSec when using unusal secondary adresses).
Version 4.1.1: (August 2002)
The emuluation of the C1531 mouse has been significantly improved. The mouse buttons are now reported only at the joystick port, that is also used for querying mouse movement. The synchronisation between the Mac mouse cursor and the C64-mouse cursor in MacOS X has been improved. It is now possible to exchange the left and right mouse button on the C64 mouse.
A minor bug, that caused Power64 to crash in the joystick configuration dialog when Appearance Manager 1.02 was installed has been fixed.
Version 4.1: (August 2002)
Updated the reSID Library to use the code from reSID 0.13. Please note that this library can only be used with MacOS 7-9 and the Classic version of Power64. It is not possible to use reSID with MacOS X.
The GEOS mouse can now be used nicely under MacOS X. Even so it is not possible to move the Mac mouse cursor under software control in MacOS X, Power64 can now handle the case the GEOS moves its mouse and uses a smart algorithm to get the Mac mouse and the GEOS mouse back in sync quickly (and without upsetting GEOS).
Fixed a bug that caused Power64 to crash when loading faulty (too big) compressed disk images.
Under special circumstances Power64 used the wrong palette when using Copy&Paste to transfer screenshots to the Clipboard. This has been fixed.
A bug that caused Power64 to become unplayably fast under MacOS X when the sound was muted (and MaxRunCnt == 1) has been fixed.
A bug that caused Power64 to crash when displaying some error messages under MacOS X has been fixed.
Version 4.0.2: (April 2002)
Timing of the VIC emulation has been improved. Some demos that previously had troubles and/or caused flicker now work fine.
SID Filter emulation has been improved.
The fast floppy emulation is now more flexible when accepting commands. File names and commands may now have a newline character at the end (that is automatically truncated). When opening files, it is now permitted to give the file mode/type in full text rather than abbreviated (e.g. SEQ,WRITE instead of S,W) and in any order (e.g. S,W or W,S)
Power64 now permits draging non-Power64 files from a mounted harddisk to a floppy or tape (used to filter for Power64 files only).
Directory window titles are now properly adjusted when switching the type of medium in a drive or swapping two drives that contained media of different type.
Turbo Boost Mode is now more compatible with tricky demos. If the Computed Frame rate is set to 1:1, Turbo Mode does no longer change this setting any more, so that programs that rely on exakt timing still work properly. The Frame Redraw rate is still adjusted, but does not have any effect on compatibility.
Clicking on the ADB/USB Joystick configuration button now summons up the corresponding dialog. This feature was broken in Power64 4.0.
Calling up the Device Option Dialog does no longer crash Power64.
The Macintosh mouse cursor now maintains its arrow shape when over a directory window, and does no longer change to a drag cursor at certain moments.
Dialogs are now properly dimmed when another (sub-) dialog is opened.
Version 4.0.1: (March 2002)
Power64 4.0 unfortunatly contained a bug that caused the Mac to hang, when a folder was selected to be mounted as a hard disk. This bug is now fixed.
Power64 now no longer uses the keyboard shortcuts Cmd-H and Cmd-M when run under MacOS X. In MacOS X these keyboard equivalents are reserved by Apple for Hiding and Minimizing windows.
Version 4.0: (March 2002)
Power64 now supports OpenGL. This makes it possible to scale the emulation window to any desired size (not just single/double/tripple etc) and actually use the full screen in Full Screen mode without any black frame around. Using bilinear filtering OpenGL produces an excellent, soft image.
For those Macs, that do not have OpenGL hardware support, drawing to the screen has been drastically improved for screens with thousands and millions of colors. Drawing of scaled images is now much faster.
It is now possible to have Power64 draw directly into the VideoRAM. While this is definitly not good MacOS practise, it is slightly faster than the legal way with CopyBits() that Power64 used up to now. This trick is even possible under MacOS X.
When using MacOS X the windows are only redrawn when an appliction gives time to other applications. In high load situations, Power64 always attempts to be greedy and while that might lead to many drawn screens only few of them were actually visible on the monitor. Power64 can now limit it's greed and make sure that the screen is redrawn more often.
When a C64 application uses a C1531 mouse and uses a sprite to indicate the position of a mouse pointer the Mac mouse can be completly hidden, so that there is only one mouse pointer visible on the screen. Power64 previously used a crosshair cursor to indicate the location of the Mac mouse even if there was a C64 sprite to do the job.
Power64 now automatically detects the hot-spot of a C64 mouse sprite and aligns it properly with the Mac mouse hot-spot. Up to now Power64 always aligned the Mac mouse hot-spot with the top-left corner of the C64 mouse sprite.
Documentation is now also available in HTML format. Since DocMaker is not Carbonized, reading the Power64 Docs under MacOS X used to require a start of the classic environment. Now they can be read in any webbrowser.
Power64 can now be used as a screensaver. Let Power64 play C64 demos (loaded from RAM Snapshots) while you are away from work, or let it show slideshows of old game cover images or Commodore ads.
RAM extensions can now also be 1, 2 or 4 MByte large. This feature is accessible only to small group of programs, that use this memory for RAM disks or swap space. GEOS is still limited to the 'old' REU sizes of 128, 256 or 512 KByte.
Power64 used to forget the default locations for disk-/tape-images and RAM snapshots when Navigation Services were used. This bug has been fixed.
Directory titles now reflect the type of device that they serve, rather than just the device number (e.g. Hard Disk #8 instead of just Drive #8).
If a D64 disk image has inconsistent information on the number of free blocks (because it is broken or has been artistically 'improved'), both numbers are displayed.
Fixed a bug that caused files to appear twice in a directory window in certain situations.
Several minor bug fixes and enhancements.
Version 3.2.1: (Sept. 2001)
The Program Menu of Power64 can now be extended with additional custom programs (See chapter 7.7).
The Carbon edition of Power64 now supports reSID under MacOS 8/9 (but not MacOS X).
The SID Player window now shows the play time progress in numeric form (in addition to the progress bar). It is now possible to close the SID Player window using Cmd-W.
Power64's file type detection now relies more on the file contents and filename, than on a previously determined file type/creator. Thus dragging e.g. a disk image, that is erroneously labeled as tape image, will load the disk image (rather than evoking a 'This is not a valid tape image' message).
Double-Clicking in the directory of a T64 tape now 'winds' it to the position directly before that program. This avoids the 'Found XYZ' messages for all the other files on the tape.
The messages of the monitor/debugger are now displayed in the chosen user-interface language, instead of always in English.
The code for writing disk images in ZIP (4/5 part) format was badly broken. Power64 continually asked for a new filename, and never saved anything. This has been fixed.
Power64 now uses the right shift key only (instead of both left and right shift key) when the cursor up or cursor left key of the Mac keyboard is pressed. Some C64 programs (Cybertracker) use left shift + cursor keys for a different purpose than right shift + cursorkeys.
When dragging files onto a write protected of full disk, Power64 used to emit a beep only. Now there are useful error messages.
The 'Broken Directory' detection introduced in Power64 3.2 was removed again. Too many 'artists' played around with directory structures causing Power64 to detect errors where there was indeed a readable (also not 100% valid) directory present.
Swapping drives #8/#9 used to switch the window titles of the directory windows to English instead of the selected interface language. This has been fixed.
The documentation of the emulator file formats now also shows the associated icons.
Version 3.2: (August 2001)
A bug that caused Power64 to destroy disk files that where stored with the replace option (@:filename) was fixed.
Power64 now remembers the chosen language on every system. This did not work on systems with Italian or Spanish MacOS.
For keyboard that distinguish between left and right Modifier keys, Power64 now emulates the left and the right C64 Shift Key seperatly. Note: Most modern keyboard do NOT distinguish these two keys. For these keyboards Power64 will continue to 'press' both C64 Shift Keys, whenever any Mac Shift key is pressed.
If a disk image does not contain a valid directory, Power64 now displays a message saying so, rather than displaying the broken data.
Error correction for TAP images has been drastically improved. The redundancy present in the original C64 tape format is now cleverly used to repair damaged files.
After loading a file from a tape image, the virtual 'Play' button of the tape drive is now automatically released. Some software checks to see that the user releases the button (for whatever reason, it can always turn off the tape motor), and was unusable before.
Directory messages are now localized according to Power64's selected language. (This does NOT apply to the floppy drive error messages. For compatibility reasons they remain as they are in the 1541 ROM (i.e. English)).
The keyboard shortcuts for mounting/unmounting devices now follow the Default Device preferences.
When a game required full floppy emulation, and showed the corresponding dialog the emulator was not properly stopped, but only placed in the background. Thus, when Power64 was set up to continue emulation in the background, it would stumble into the same call the the 1541 over and over again and redisplay the window over and over again. This was fixed.
A special patch has been added to the emulator detection code. The 'Blast from the Past' game collection is theoretically emulator aware, but only accepts the 'C64 Software Emulator' for the PC as 'proper' emulator. Power64 now detect this misbehaviour and fixes it.
When a tape could not be properly mounted, the directory window of the previously mounted tape sometimes remained visible, even so neither the old, nor the new tape was mounted. Power64 now closes the directory window properly if there is no device.
The Device Dialog was split into a Device and a Directory Option Dialog. This became necessary, since the old Device Dialog has grown too big to be fully visible on a 640x480 screen.
The Default Device Popup-Menu was not usable in its full width. This was fixed in a way that should avoid similar trouble with too small Controls for all future.
It used to be possible to drag the C64 'into' the menubar by two pixels. While many programs allow dragging it even further, this behaviour seem ugly and was stopped.
Version 3.1: (July 2001)
Power64 now supports *.G41/*.G64/*.GCR disk images. This makes some tricks (copy protection/fastloaders) possible that were not possible with *.D64 disks.
Power64 now supports *.D64 disks with 42 tracks (used to be 35 and 40 only).
Power64 can now emulate 1571 and 1581 disk drives (*.D71/*.D81 disk images)
Power64 now supports raw tape images in *.TAP format
It is now possible to quickly change the folder of the Mac hard disks, moving up and down the directory tree with a simple click in the directory window.
The mouse emulation now offers the option to automatically detect that a C64 program attempts to use the 1531 mouse to control a mouse pointer. With this option Power64 will automatically link to C64 mouse pointer to the Mac mouse pointer.
A bug that caused Power64 to crash when drives #8 and #9 were exchanged has been fixed.
When mounting a large ZIP archive as a hard disk, Power64 used to display only the first 120 entries in the directory. This limitation has been removed.
Power64 can now use LHA Archives to emulate a hard disk (used to be: only ZIP archives).
Power64 now remembers the permitted file types in the file selection dialogs correctly when Navigation Services are enabled (used to be StandardFile dialogs only).
Power64 now presents the 'Create New Disk/Tape' dialogs with the correct default folder even when Navigation Services is enabled.
Corrupt GZ/ZIP archives are now handled correctly. A premature end-of-file of an archive could crash Power64.
Power64 can now hog the Mac CPU, giving only minimal processing time to other applications
The Directory windows now have a Zoom button for automatic adjustment to optimal size.
Several anti-virus programs complained that Power64 3.0's resource fork was damaged. These programs did not expect any program to use more than 32 KByte for resource names, but Power64 provided detailed comments on its resources. To avoid further confusion, the resource names have been stripped (saving 50 KByte disk space in the process).
Lots of minor bugfixes.
Version 3.0: (April 2501)
All System calls in Power64 have been checked for their Carbon friendliness and (where necessary) been adjusted. It should therefore be easy to create a MacOS X version of Power64 once MacOS X is released (and stable).
Power64's internal SID emulation has been completely reworked. It now features filters and resonance as well as oversampling. Furthermore it is possible to selectively mute SID-voices (e.g. to analyze the sound of single voices).
Power64 can now play Sounds recorded in reSID format by itself. This previously required reSID.
The timing of the VIC emulation was once again refined (visible e.g. in the Deus Ex Machina Demo).
It is now possible to mount ZIP archives containing *.PRG/*.P00 files as hard disks (read access only).
The error messages for broken disk/tape/program images have been improved. In particular they now give clear descriptions when a binary file has been downloaded (or compressed) as text file (and been destroyed by linefeed conversion in the process).
The contents of a ZIP archive is now clearly denoted by its icon. There are now separate icons for zipped disk images, zipped tape images, zipped cartridge etc. (rather than just a general ZIP archive icon, and separate icons for GZIP files only).
The Mac mouse can now be connected directly to a C64 sprite, so that programs that can be controlled with the mouse now see only one (common C64 and Mac) mouse. (e.g. GoDot).
The disk command LOAD"$:",8 now behaves correctly.
The C64 keys '^' and '£' that were not mapped to the Mac keyboard in previous versions of Power64 are now available as PageUp/Down.
The Power64 Debugger/Monitor now keeps a list of recent commands, that can be browsed using Ctrl-Up/Down.
Power64 now offers all four supported user interface languages in one single file. The proper language is chosen at runtime (rather than download-time).
The Spanish user interface has been totally redone and is now truly complete including the documentation.
Power64 now automatically adjust the sizes of all dialog elements to match different system fonts without accidental clipping. This is particularly useful when running Kaleidoscope and picking a fontsize larger that 12 point (even so Kaleidoscope has a lot of trouble here itself...)
Fixed a bug that caused strange colors on 24-bit screens under MacOS 9.1.
If unexpected event occur in the main event loop (e.g. right click on a two button mouse), no error message is produced any more.
Fixed a bug that caused Power64 to remember the registration code only on the second try.
Clear Navigation buttons have been added to the documentation. Too many people failed to find the Table of Contents in the menu bar, or the pop-up menu at the bottom of the window or the horizontal scrollbar.
Version 2.9: (Sept. 2000)
Games on ROM-Cartridges (CRT-File Format - Cartridges with one or more banks of ROM) are now supported by Power64. Note: Only ROM Cartridges are supported. RAM Cartridges or mixed RAM/ROM Cartridges are not supported, as there are too may proprietary addressing systems that are each only used for a single product.
When a ZIP archives, that contain multiple files, is opened Power64 now asks which file should be used (rather than always using the first file of the archive)
The Debugger's Find command can now search for text strings too (used to be: sequences of hex-bytes only).
When used together with reSID 0.8/4 Power64 now determines separate performance data for reSID usage with and without active filters (rather than only without), and disables the Filter option on slow Macs separately.
Eliminated a bug in the Screen Snapshot Printing Code. Calling this function twice would cause Power64 to crash.
Version 2.8.1: (July 2000)
The Debugger/Monitor now supports POKE, SYS and PEEK commands with the usual (decimal) BASIC Syntax. This makes it easier to apply patches to running programs.
Power64 now has a new, anti-aliased Icon (only on Systems with Appearance Manager). This new icon can also be clicked on in the 'hole' of the Commodore logo, making it an easier target for the mouse.
A Master Switch has been added for the joystick. This makes it easy to turn all joysticks off with a single command. This is particularly useful if 'essential' keys on the keyboard (e.g. cursor, shift) are blocked by the joystick, which some users find convenient on desktop keyboards and which is almost unavoidable on PowerBooks.
The position of double size sprites that extended over the left edge of the screen in NTSC mode was 8 pixels off. This has been fixed. Furthermore there have been minimal adjustments to the video timing in NTSC mode.
Added documentation for the M6510 Assembler Commands
Added documentation for the ASIC Register Maps (VIC/SID/CIA)
Version 2.8: (June 2000)
Power64 now uses the Navigation Services of MacOS for file selection. These are much more comfortable than the Standard File functions as the permit easy selection of favorite or recently used files and folders from a menu.
Power64 now works flawlessly on battery powered PowerBooks. In previous versions the PowerBook reduced Power64 speed to save battery power when no mouse movement or keyboard activity took place.
A serious bug in the sound code, that caused the MacOS to crash in high-load situations has been fixed.
Power64 now offers the option to smooth the edges on enlarged video displays. This resembles the blurring caused by the TV-tube on a real C64.
The speed of the zoomed display on screens with thousands of colors has been improved.
The default settings for the joystick emulation are now on the cursor keys if the keyboard does not have a numeric keypad.
Version 2.7: (March 2000)
Power64 is now able to write GZ compressed Disk and Tape files. Thus there is no reason to use non compressed files any more.
The icons for GZ-compressed files do now reflect the type of the contents, rather than just the fact that it is a GZ-compressed file.
Power64 can now show a window with the current keyboard layout. This makes it easier to find the graphic characters on the C64 keyboard.
Power64 can now record sound not only as AIFF file, but also in the much more compact reSID file format. The reSID file format can be played back using reSID 0.8/2 available from the Power64 Homepage.
A hard disk can now be automatically be mounted on drive #8 or #9 (instead of #8 only) for each new C64.
In Turbo-Boost mode the keyboard repeat rate is adjusted to normal speed level. Thus it is possible to type text (including spaces and cursor movement) comfortably without characters being accidently duplicated.
Power64 can now query the USB-joystick movement as four separate buttons. While this is obviously against the central idea of Input Sprocket it seems to be a necessary work-around for a bug that appears in MacOS 9 together with certain joystick drivers.
Version 2.6: (November 1999)
Power64 is now available in German and a Spanish edition is on its way. If you are interested in translating Power64 to other languages, please let me know.
Power64 now offers much better support for GEOS. All important GEOS functions are accelerated (no need to use complete floppy emulation any more, seamless connection Mac and C64 mouse). Printing in draft (Text) and graphic mode.
Power64 now saves the current Options with RAM Images
A minor bug in with the REU was resolved. GEOS considered 256 KByte REUs as 512 KByte.
Fixed a bug that caused the sound emulation to get stuck in a short loop if reSID was manually closed while it was used by Power64
Fixed a bug, that caused the reSID Random Number generator to fail under high system load.
Version 2.5.1: (September 1999)
The interface to reSID has been rewritten from scratch. In Power64 2.5 reSID was called via a shared Library, which I consider to be sufficiently separate from Power64 to comply with the GNU GPL. Unfortunately Ettore Perazzoli from the VICE-team insists that this is not distinct enough. While we have never been finally settled which opinion is actually right, I have chosen to avoid further conflict, and have written a completely new interface for reSID. reSID is now a truly stand alone application, that runs as a separate task, and communicates with Power64 only via Apple Events and shared memory. This should satisfy even the most stringent definition of separate work.
reSID is now reset together with the C64.
Totally reworked Sound Options Dialog.
Added Sound Sample Rate can now be selected (44.100, 22.050 or 11.025 kHz).
Comments in AIFF-Files have been extended. They now denote the Sound Quality, Duration, Creator etc.
Fixed Sound Bugs - The C64 became faster, when Samples were played.
Added support for a 1351 Mouse. Works fine with GEOS.
The support for the Lightpen has been improved and calibrated. It now works great with Blazing Paddles.
Added Turbo Boost Mode to speed up Power64 during long LOADs (or if the chess program is thinking too long), without sacrificing compatibility.
Added choice of Color Lookup Tables. Many people have complained, that the colors are all wrong. Now there is a choice of ten lookup tables.
Added Cheat Mode - Sprite Collision detection can be turned on/off. This can be done separately for each sprite and sprite/sprite and sprite/background collisions, so it should be flexible enough for most games.
Drag & Drop can now be used to create copies of a file on the same disk/tape image (press Option during the drag).
Disk and Tape Images can now be write-protected/-enabled by clicking the lock icon in the directory window. If the original image can not be written back, a prompt for a new destination will be show when unmounting.
Disk and Tape Images can now be unmounted without saving changes back to file.
Improved support for SEQ-Files on hard disk. SEQ Files now have their own Type/Creator and are properly labeled in the directory.
The single step mode of the debugger now supports a possibility to quickly recycle the last 'tl' command.
The memory dump commands of the monitor now offer more flexible control. The memory address can be increase or decreased by one line or one Byte using the cursor keys.
Fixed a bug in the sprite collision code, that sometimes reported spurious collisions of sprites outside the screen.
Fixed a bug, that caused Power64 to crash when loading RAM images that contained a REU.
Fixed a bug, that caused Power64 to crash when files where copied between disk drive using drag & drop.
Fixed a bug, that caused tapes that were newly created in disk drives not to be properly written back.
Fixed a bug, that caused broken zoomed windows on screens with millions of colors.
Fixed a bug, in NEW Magician. Restored programs used to be 1 Byte to large.
Support for USB joysticks is now documented. While it has been implemented for many releases, many people wondered if the term 'ADB joysticks' excludes USB.
The secure mode of Power64 can now be activated by holding the Control key when starting Power64 (used to be Option - Conflict: Holding down Option while starting a program is used by the Finder to close the window after starting the program!)
Version 2.5: (August 1999)
Added a CPU Cycle exact Timing Mode. With this option CPU and VIC Timing is much more precise. In particular the VIC now steals the correct (and not just the correct number of) cycles from the CPU. Necessary for tricks like using sprites to achieve raster synchronization.
Serious improvements to the CIA timing. Emulation is now much more precise. This was necessary for the Electronic Arts Fastloader (Legacy of the Ancients, Marble Madness...)
Together these two improvements lead to a serious general increase in compatibility.
Added interface to reSID Sound Emulation library. This provides better SID emulation at an extreme increase of CPU Load (200MHz+ Macintosh required). Due to license problems the reSID Library is not included with Power64. It can be downloaded separately, free of charge, from the Power64 homepage.
Shadow Registers for CIA-Time of Day Clock now work correctly
Added support for LHA-archives
T64 and Lynx files can now mounted on disk drives by default. This should avoid some confusion that was caused by software that refused to load from drive #1.
Fixed a bug that caused Power64 to crash after the M6502 of a floppy drive ran into an illegal instruction.
Version 2.4: (June 1999)
Added a High Precision Video Mode. It offers almost cycle exact emulation making tricks like open left/right borders etc. possible.
Furthermore many games that used to flicker in some places are now perfectly stable. This gives a significant boost in compatibility.
Added Drag & Drop support. Files can now be copied between D64-disk images, T64-tape images and the hard disk by simply dragging and dropping. Also files can be renamed by clicking on their name, and just typing the new name. To delete a file, just drag it to the garbage. Handling C64 files is just as easy as handling MacOS files with the Finder.
Added Text Drag & Drop. To copy information from/into an emulator window, just use drag & drop.
Shift-, Control-, Option- and Command- Keys are now available for joystick emulation. This is useful for PowerBook users, that don't have a numeric keypad.
Error information in D64 disk images, is now evaluated in true 1541 mode. This makes many games, that still have their copy protection (at least partially) in place usable with Power64.
Fixed a bug in the full 1541 emulation code, giving a definite improvement in compatibility (Telarium Loaders, GEOS works)
Reworked the speed control code. This hopefully fixes the jerky movement experienced with some blue-white G3s.
Added variable image frame width option. This permits displaying a large frame around the central screen area for games that make excessive use of frame sprites (e.g. Mega Phoenix) while maintaining a slim outline for 'regular' software.
Added new commands to the built in Monitor: tl = Trace until a scanline has been reached; tq = Trace Quick for a certain number of statement; View VIC/SID/CIA/RAM state in easy-to-read format.
Added new keywords for the evaluation of expressions in the Monitor: Mem[] gets the contents of memory, Scanline evaluates to the current video scanline
Fixed a bug that caused a serious crash when a bad, or sometimes even valid Lynx file was mounted.
Improved keyboard navigation in directory windows. Typing the first few characters of a filename move the cursor to that file. Up to now only the first character was evaluated.
Printing the contents of the C64 screen now works correctly with selection even if the screen has been scaled.
Fixed a bug, that caused sprites on the left edge of the screen to have faulty sprite/background priority.
Fixed a bug that caused trouble with linked counters in the CIA.
Updated the FTP-links for game sites in the documentation
Version 2.2.1: (January 1999)
File type recognition is now much smarter for GZ/ZIP files, and now looks at the headers of the files inside a archive rather than just at its filenames (which are still evaluated for performance reasons).
Fixed a bug in the Joystick selection dialog, that caused the the fire button of joystick B to be forgotten.
Fixed a bug in the Joystick selection dialog, that caused total failure to remember any changes when no C64 window was open.
Some people were confused about that the numbers above the regular keyboard do not work for the joysticks when numbers from the keypad were selected for joystick keys. The keys from the keypad are now prefixed 'Kpd.' in the joystick dialog to avoid this confusion.
Version 2.2: (December 1998)
Added support for GZ and ZIP files. This saves lots of space on the hard disks and makes CD-ROMs with ZIPed files much easier to use.
Fixed a bug, that caused the Mac to crash when a key was pressed in a Power64 dialog (usually Emulator Speed Joysticks)
Fixed a bug, that caused the Directory Window position to be forgotten after closing the window.
FileType detection for files that come without a suitable Type/Creator is now much smarter. It looks not only on the file name extension (as before), but also for magic headers and filesizes.
Tape (T64/Lynx) files on read-only Macintosh disks are now properly write protected.
Tape files can now also be mounted using the disk mounting dialog. This is useful, if you do not know what kind of file hides within a GZ/ZIP archive. The only distinction between 'Insert Floppy Disk' and 'Mount Tape/Lynx' now is that 'Insert Floppy Disk' will start the file selection dialog in the folder that the last disk image was selected from, while 'Mount Tape/Lynx' will start the selection from the previous tape image folder.
Fixed a bug that caused some tapes not to load properly when mounted on a disk drive.
Added basic Appearance Manager awareness.
Added function key F9 as a mapping of Clr/Home (necessary on PowerBooks that don't have a Home key).
Insert now works as Insert/Delete key also in Macintosh keyboard mode.
Fixed a minor bug, in the build-in monitor, that caused a wrong value to be displayed after an update to $0001
Change the Power64 program icons for nicer looks.
Fixed some typos in the documentation. There are more still sitting around :-)
Version 2.1.2: (September 1998)
GEOS finally works (at least sometimes)
Fixed a major bug in the Floppy Emulation - M-R now works for multiple bytes.
Fixed a minor bug in the Floppy Emulation ('Pirates' now works)
Added very simple SID-filters (all or nothing passes - needed for samples in Space Taxi)
Added a execute-single-line key for the trace-mode of the debugger.
Added documentation for SFX files.
Version 2.1.1: (May 1998)
Fixed some serious bug in ADB joystick code
Added a new C64 font ROM with fixed characters 101 and 103.
Added pictures on C64 keyboard layout
Added downloading tips to documentation
Version 2.1: (April 1998)
Fixed a serious bug in emulation speed control
Fixed a serious bug (Cut&Paste) that causes MacOS instability on some machines
Fixed two serious bug in the Floppy1541 emulation that caused the MacOS to crash with certain games.
Complete Floppy Emulation does no longer require CPU time, when the floppy does not perform any transfers
Fixed a stupid bug that caused the location of Tape images to be forgotten.
Added a Option for better Tape File Type fixing (All files on a tape image are PRG)
Mounting a hard disk on every new C64 window is now optional.
The warning message for damaged T64 files can be turned off.
Added Support for ZipCoded disk image files
Power64 can now convert between D64, X64 and ZipCoded disk image files. T64 tape images can be converted to Lynx and back.
Added Trace Command to Monitor
Extended the Syntax of Monitor expressions (All values are now signed or unsigned.)
Added a Skip Every other Scanline Video feature
REU contents and Floppy RAM saved with RAM Snapshot
Fixed a minor bug in keyboard handling for US keyboards (rightarrow key)
Added Frames/Second information to CPU Load display
Version 2.0: (February 1998)
Added Full 1541 Floppy Emulation.
Added RAM Expansion support.
Fixed some bugs in the CPU (Bad Undocumented Opcodes, Timing Problems).
Floppy Reset 1541 on C64 reset
Added the possibility to create AIFF files of C64 sound
Added accelerated drawing on screens with thousands of colors (16 bit)
Support for triple and quadruple size windows.
Fixed a bug at Emulator Speed / System Clock.
Fixed a bug in accessing ColorRAM in the Macintosh side monitor/debugger.
Fixed some bugs around modifier keys and Menu shortcuts.
Reworked Floppy and Hard Disk Emulation.
Attached tape and disk images are now stored with an RAM image.
Dragging a Disk or Folder Icon on Power64 mounts it as C64 hard disk.
Fixed an incompatibility in newly created disk images (New & Validate command).
Load is now much faster (about 25x faster than in Power64 1.5, 1000x faster than a real 1541 floppy disk)
Tape and Lynx Files can now also be mounted on drives #8-#11. (Some games expect that behavior)
Emulator window position is now remembered
Black frame is now also available for a second screen.
Fixed a bug in the window dragging routine, that caused the outline not to be shown on a second screen.
Added a decent icon for the Read-Me file.
Version 1.5: (August 1997)
Added Macintosh side monitor/debugger.
Added Lynx file support.
Added Balloon Help.
Added online Registration info.
Support for 8-way keyboard joysticks
Added support for ADB joysticks via Input Sprocket.
Emulation can now also run in the background.
Extended Read-Me file with many more links.
Added "Are you sure?" dialogs for reset/close/quit.
Device and Monitor window position are now saved with the preferences.
Automatically adjusts file Type/Creator.
Added Internet awareness with Internet Config
Added Links for Netscape and Internet Explorer
Documentation now created with DocMaker
Added lots of links to game site in the Documentation
