Docs / What's New

What's New#

What changed in each release of C64 READY., in plain language, newest first. The version you are running is shown at the bottom of the About dialog.

2026.10.2 — October 4, 2026#

The interface comes in dark and light, with six built-in themes and your own from a theme file. Everything now works from the keyboard, and the User Guide is split into topic pages.

• Light mode and themes. The interface follows your system's dark or light setting, or stays on one you pick with the new button in the header or APPEARANCE in Options ▸ Theme. Classic, GEOS, Breadbin, Phosphor, Out Run and Commando are built in, each in dark and light with a faint pattern of its own on the page, and you can import your own as a theme file. EXPORT saves the current one as a file to start from, and Cmd+Shift+Y (Ctrl+Shift+Y on Windows and Linux) switches to the next. The screen, the CRT looks and Retro Vibes look the same in all of them, and the docs follow the same dark or light setting.
• Keyboard and accessibility. Tab reaches every control and Enter or Space presses it; lists like the Library and the drive directories move with the arrow keys. The C64 gets the keyboard while its screen has focus, and Tab no longer types INST/DEL. Screen readers get clearer labels, and all text in Classic meets 4.5:1 contrast.
• Assembly64 charts. The Assembly64 Browser has a Charts tab between Explore and Favorites: the top-rated demos, one-file demos, games, music, graphics and tools, ranked by CSDb visitors' votes. LOAD opens a file you already saved to the Library instead of downloading it again.
• The User Guide, in topics. A short opening page and six topic pages, the command line among them, with links to the next. Links to the old pages still land on the right section.
• A cleaner header and logo. The tagline under the logo is gone and the logo lines up with the buttons. Its CRT lines run through the letters only, so the edges stay crisp, and it follows the CRT settings panel.
• Keys that look like keys. The joystick keys in Control Ports and the keys in KEY MAP are plain, neutral keys, so they no longer pass for buttons. Point at a joystick key to see what it does.
• LOAD ANY works with the machine off. It powers the C64 on and runs the file, as dropping one on the screen does. With AUTORUN off, a disk or .prg now says it was inserted, and nothing loads until you type LOAD.
• Full-memory PRGs start. A .prg that fills memory through the $D000 to $DFFF area, like the uncrunched OneLoad64 games, now goes straight into memory. Before, Commando and others like it played their music over a black screen.
• Smaller fixes. LOAD ANY and LOAD LIB now sit on the first row of Media load. A dragged panel keeps its look. Scrollbars stay visible while there is more to scroll to. The Datasette's sound and scope are greyed out until a tape is in. The "Load faster?" question comes back after a reload or when TDE is turned on again.

2026.10.1 — October 2, 2026#

Load D71, D81 and copy-protected G64 disks, and use disks with True Drive Emulation off through a new built-in drive. The CRT looks are redrawn, with a settings panel for fine-tuning each one.

• D71 and D81 disks. Use 1571 and 1581 disk images in drives 8 and 9, with loading, saving, formatting, export, the Library and Assembly64. These formats use the virtual drive and turn True Drive Emulation off for that drive.
• G64 disk images. Load .g64 raw disk images into drive 8 or 9: the disk as the original recorded it, so copy-protected games load as on a real 1541. Loading one turns True Drive Emulation on.
• Nibbler dumps. A .nbz from the C64 Preservation Project loads too; it becomes a .g64 on the way in.
• Disk I/O with TDE off. A built-in drive now answers the KERNAL for drives 8 and 9: programs open and read files, list the directory, use the command channel and SAVE, on a .d64, .d71 or .d81, without the 1541 ROM. Loaders that call the LOAD routine through its vector work too.
• CRT looks redrawn. Scanlines sit on the C64's own raster lines and the phosphor mask on your screen's pixels, so no more ripple or banding at any size or on Retina screens. Bright areas glow instead of dimming.
• One frame for every look. No thick bezel on the tube looks; the picture keeps its size.
• CRT settings. A CRT SETTINGS button in Options (or Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F) opens a draggable panel with the six looks and a slider for every setting behind them, remembered per look. The CRT button still cycles the looks.
• Collision overlay. An optional diagnostic tint shows sprite and graphics collision areas over the screen, with a 200 ms sprite-to-sprite collision indicator.
• Smaller fixes. Pixels already fetched for display stay intact when a program changes graphics memory or switches video banks mid-line. Drawing the screen takes less CPU work. Flescos no longer shows a black stripe through the picture. Tooltips on the controls are shorter.

2026.9.3 — September 28, 2026#

Play two-SID tunes in stereo with separate scopes and envelope bars. This release also refines Retro Vibes lighting and makes programs easier to load while something else is running.

• Two SID chips. Play two-SID tunes in stereo, with each chip on its own speaker, or mix both in mono. Tune files select their chip models and ask before enabling SID2 or changing its address. Early stereo PSID v2 files are supported too. Options also lets you enable a second chip for games and demos, and saved states remember both chips. Two stacked, half-height scopes and separate blue ENV 3 labels and bars show the two chips separately.

• More atmospheric Retro Vibes lighting. Synthwave's neon lights bring colour to the C64, with smoother grid and road lines. In 80s Bedroom, the main monitor lights the desk with colours from the running picture. Spotlight, IK+ Sunset and Bedroom each have their own gentler grain, vignette and colour-fringing settings.

• Clean left picture edge in VIVA LV. Stray pixels no longer flicker into the left border on the picture's first line.

• Dropping a program on a running machine runs it. A .prg, .t64 or .sid dropped on the screen, picked with LOAD ANY or opened from the Library used to wait for a BASIC prompt that a running tune or game never gives. It now resets to one first, as a load from Assembly64 already did. A disk or tape still goes in without a reset, since it may be the one a running game asked for.

2026.9.2 — September 20, 2026#

Play .SID tunes on a player that runs on the C64 itself. This release also opens .T64 archives and fixes a 6510 interrupt timing corner that stopped demos at a part switch.

• Demos that time their music and effects with CIA interrupts keep running. A timer interrupt arriving in the last moments of another interrupt's start-up could be taken a few cycles early. Performers' C=BIT '18 no longer stops at its first part switch.

• .SID tunes play, on a player that runs on the C64. Drop one on the screen, pick it with LOAD ANY, or open one from Assembly64, where the whole High Voltage SID Collection lives. The tune is wrapped in a program that runs on the 6510 and drives the SID, so CIA-timed tunes, raster-timed tunes and digi tricks all work. See Playing a .sid tune.

• .T64 archives open. Drop one on the screen or pick it with LOAD ANY, and the program inside runs. Where an archive holds several, you are asked which.

• A tape of loader stubs no longer reads as damaged. The tiny file that hands over to a game's own fast loader used to count as signal belonging to nothing. The warning is now kept for signal that really does.

2026.9.1 — September 14, 2026#

Explore demos, intros, music and other C64 scene productions directly in Assembly64, then load compatible files or save them to Library for later. This release also improves keyboard focus and refreshes the User Guide.

• Keyboard focus is clearer. Tab navigates the Assembly64 control without reaching the C64. A hint below the screen shows when keyboard input belongs to a field or dialog.

• Key Joystick 1 uses J and K for fire by default. L stays available for typing LOAD. Custom key mappings are preserved.

• Explore the C64 demoscene with Assembly64. Discover demos, intros, music, graphics and diskmags, search by production title or group, and follow your favorite creators. Demos is the starting category. Open Explore for advanced search, favorites and named searches, then load compatible productions or save their files to Library for offline use. Media load now starts below Control Ports, with Assembly64 at the top of the right column, expanded by default.

• A small graphics performance improvement in Safari. The renderer does less repeated work while keeping the same picture and sprite behavior.

• Disk loading offers to turn True Drive Emulation on. When loading a .d64 with TDE off and the drive ROM available, choose Turn TDE on for compatibility or Keep TDE off to continue with the current setting. This also works from the LOAD buttons on drives 8 and 9.

• Loading a program offers to load it faster. Nothing on the disk a .prg arrives on needs the emulated 1541, but True Drive Emulation still loads it at the speed of the real thing. Loading one now offers to switch that off. Declining is remembered.

• Clicking a file in a disk directory works with True Drive Emulation off. It used to load the program to the wrong place in memory, which did nothing at best and blacked out the screen at worst.

• A seventh commercial tape loader can be read: PROCASS, US Gold's own mastering system, the one on Out Run and Forgotten Worlds. Its tapes used to show a few small files and minutes nothing could read; the deck now lists every file by name, the only commercial format here that has them.

2026.9.0 — September 5, 2026#

• C64 READY. gets a command line. npx c64rdy puts a terminal in front of the same tape and disk engine: turn a shelf of cassette recordings into .tap files in one go, list what a tape, disk or cartridge holds, repair damage, and boot programs headless — down to every program on a tape side tiled into one captioned sheet. No install, no dependencies. The new CLI guide covers it all.
• Six commercial tape loaders can be read: Novaload (the loader behind many boxed games, drawing a picture and playing music while the tape runs), Ocean / Imagine, Freeload, Wildload, Gremlin Type 2, and the US Gold / Datasoft one. Tapes that use them used to show one or two small files and minutes nothing could read. The deck now lists everything on them.
• Shortcuts that stay out of the C64's way. App shortcuts now take Cmd+Shift on a Mac and Ctrl+Shift on Windows and Linux, both working everywhere: V pastes, F cycles the CRT look, Z zooms the VIBES button. Ctrl on its own stays the machine's, and text boxes keep their own keys. The KEY MAP dialog lists them.
• Studio mode for Retro Vibes. Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X strips the 3D scene to the machine and the C64 READY. logo (no buttons, no pointer) for screenshots and video. Remembered between visits.
• A smoother welcome. The POWER ON glow was redrawn on the processor every frame; it now runs on the graphics card. Same look, none of the cost. Thanks to the reader who reported it, fix included.
• The idle demo knows when to sit one out. It steps aside for reduced-motion settings, or graphics that can't keep up, leaving the "press power to boot" hint. ATTRACT MODE in Options still has the say.
• Clearer documentation. The docs pages got a readability and accuracy pass: shorter guides, corrected details, less repetition.

2026.8.6 — August 29, 2026#

First public release of source code. C64 READY. is now open source under the GNU General Public License v3 (or later). The complete source, its 2,400+ tests and these docs live on GitHub: https://github.com/mortyeriksen/c64ready

• Read it, build it, run it locally. The README explains how to run the emulator and its test suite with your own C64 ROMs; the ROMs themselves are still Commodore's and are not included.
• Report bugs and request features on the GitHub issue tracker; pull requests are welcome too (see CONTRIBUTING in the repository).
• Privacy, in writing. The About page now states what leaves your browser: nothing but a few anonymous page counts. ROMs, disks, tapes and save states stay in your browser.
• Credits and licenses in one place. Everything C64 READY. builds on, from reSID and VICE to the fonts and the 3D model, is listed in the repository's NOTICE file and on the Specifications page.

2026.8.5 — August 29, 2026#

A release about getting started. If you already run VICE, the ROMs are one folder pick away.

• ROMs straight from VICE. The setup dialog now starts with Get ROM files from VICE: press CHOOSE…, pick the VICE folder, and the four ROM images are found inside it. Your browser may call that an upload, but nothing is sent anywhere. Loading each file yourself still works, below.
• Dialogs stay where you put them. The Options header no longer scrolls away with the settings under it, and scrollbars sit beside the rows instead of over them.
• One less sound setting. The old LEGACY engine is gone. ENGINE now picks between reSID WASM and reSID JS.
• Clearer instructions. Getting Started and the User Guide have been rewritten.

2026.8.4 — August 26, 2026#

A release about cassettes. A recording of a worn tape is read for everything that can still be recovered, and nothing is trusted until the tape itself has proved it.

• Your old cassettes may play again. Record a worn tape to .wav and drop it on the screen. The deck reads what is left and mends what it can prove. Nothing brings back a stretch the tape has lost. Of the programs on eight 1980s cassettes, 66 loaded before and 121 do now.
• Every reading is used. Both channels of a stereo transfer and their average are read. So are the two lined up: they sit a hair apart on every tape, and lining them up rescued whole sides. The reading that hands over the most files wins. A file it cannot prove is read again from all the others.
• Repairs need agreement. A checksum alone lets one wrong reading in 256 through, so a file goes back only when two readings agree on its bytes. One that nobody else could confirm is still put back, and says so in the listing.
• Proved files load like new. Every file the tape can prove is rewritten at clean pulse widths. A loader from 1986 is never handed a marginal one. One game whose bytes checked out but whose loader tripped on two such pulses loads now.
• A directory for the tape. New: 🔍 on the deck lists what is on the tape. It is laid out like the Library: a row per file with its format, size and start time. A click winds the tape to that file. Every file is there, named or not. Damaged ones are struck through. A line under the list says what is wrong, how much is gone and what was mended.
• DC2N dumps load. A .dmp from a DC2N is a tape like any other.
• See the signal. A scope beside the tape speaker draws the square wave passing under the head.
• Lighter on a phone. Tape recordings are read in pieces. That is about half the memory it took before, so a long side no longer risks the browser stopping it.
• Also:
  • Run in background is a new switch under Options ▸ Other. It keeps the machine running while another window has focus. Off by default.
  • Datasette: a reset lifts the PLAY key, and a SAVE plays out loud as it is written.
  • Drive 9 starts with True Drive Emulation on.
  • Tooltips wait two seconds before appearing, so they stay out of the way while you work.
  • YouTube channel link in the header. Subscribe for updates!

2026.8.3 — August 22, 2026#

Tooltips that turn up where they belong, and fixes for using C64 READY. on a phone.

• Tooltips stay with their control. The explanation appears just under the button, in the app's own colours; no more arriving late and halfway across the page.
• The touch joystick leaves your keyboard alone. Pressing the touch joystick or a fire button no longer raises the on-screen keyboard.
• Fire on K and L. Key Joystick 1 starts with both fire buttons under your right hand. Keys you rebound yourself are untouched.
• Room for the + on touch. The + that brings a hidden card back moves to the bottom of the screen while the joystick is up, clear of the fire button.
• Library files move between phone and desktop. A library exported on Android imports back again, and a wrong file now says so in the dialog.
• A cleaner bedroom. The lamp in the 80s Bedroom no longer hazes the room in Safari.

2026.8.2 — August 12, 2026#

Expansion RAM for the software that wants it, disks that behave like the originals, a side panel you can pare back to what you use, and 3D scenes worth sitting in.

• A RAM Expansion Unit. Switch one on in the RAM Expansion card (a 1700, 1764, 1750, 1750 XL or a generic unit up to 16 MB), and the demos and programs that want expansion RAM will find it, working the way it does on real hardware. You can fill it from a .reu file, save it back out, or wipe it, and whatever is in it comes along inside a save state.
• Disks that keep their quirks. 40- and 42-track .d64 images load, not just the usual 35; a 42-track image used to be read as an ordinary 35-track disk. If an image records the errors on the original floppy, those are honoured too, so a game protected by a sector that has to fail to read still loads the way it was meant to. GEOS disks show readable filenames.
• Hide the cards you don't use. Drag a side-panel card to the corner and drop it, and it is gone from the panel; a + appears in that corner to bring any of them back. Your arrangement is remembered either way.
• Shortcuts that work on every platform. App shortcuts now take Cmd on a Mac and Alt (or Alt+Shift) on Windows and Linux; all three work everywhere, and the KEY MAP dialog lists them. Windows and Linux get a paste shortcut at last. Ctrl is left alone, because the C64 needs it.
• A bedroom you'd recognise. The 80s Bedroom scene is properly furnished now: lit like a room at night, with something playing on the TV in the corner. The IK+ Sunset courtyard has its stone, its shadows and the water catching the light, and Synthwave gets an arcade road running out to the sun.
• Lit by the C64 itself. In the Spotlight scene the light on the machine now comes from its own picture, so the colour in the room shifts with whatever is on screen. Starry Plain has a new sky, with the Milky Way sweeping across it.

2026.8.1 — August 6, 2026#

Loading got simpler, the controls are yours to arrange, and the picture keeps its shape whatever you do to the window.

• One button for any file. LOAD ANY takes a .prg, .d64, .crt, .tap or .wav and works out what to do with it: the same thing dropping a file on the screen already did. No more picking the right button for the file in your hand.
• A .prg arrives on a disk. Load a program and it is written onto a disk of its own instead of being dropped into memory. It shows up in the directory, you can load it again, and you can save it back out as a .d64. It also means loading a program no longer resets the machine; putting a disk in a real C64 doesn't either.
• Hear the tape. A speaker button on the Datasette plays what the C64 is actually reading: the real screech, not an imitation.
• Tapes as sound files. Save a tape as a .wav (the actual cassette audio) and play it into a real C64 to load it there. It works the other way too: record a real cassette to a .wav and load it here.
• Arrange the controls. Every card in the side panel has a grip handle. Drag it to move it up or down, or across to the other column, and it stays where you put it next time you visit. Put everything in one column if you like. The handles work from the keyboard too, and Options ▸ Display has a reset if you want the original layout back.
• A demo in the VIBES button. The VIBES button now has a small pixel demo running inside it. Press Cmd+Z to blow it up to ten times the size. Switch it off in Options if you'd rather have a plain button.
• A picture that is never stretched. Turning a phone on its side used to squash the C64 screen out of shape. It now always keeps the machine's own proportions (at any size, any window shape, and with any CRT look), and the frame stays tight around it instead of running wider.
• A new MAX size. SIZE gains MAX, which fills the width available rather than stepping in whole multiples, useful where no multiple quite fits. Sizes too big for your window are left out of the cycle now, instead of being shown clamped to a size they are not, so the button always changes something. It is available on phones too, where it used to be hidden.
• Fixes. Game intros that read the loading messages back off the screen now start on their own. Opening Library or Save States on a phone no longer covers the list with the keyboard. The documentation pages get their icon back. And the installed app is a little smaller again.

2026.8.0 — August 4, 2026#

Better sound, and a way to get your work out of the emulator.

• A new SID engine. The reSID transistor-level model now runs as compiled WebAssembly and is the default, so the sound is the same as before but far cheaper to produce. Options ▸ Sound still lets you pick reSID JS or the older Legacy engine, and all three play at the same volume.
• Record what you see. A new RECORD button captures the window with sound to an MP4 you can trim in QuickTime or drop straight into a video editor. Works in Chrome, Edge and desktop Safari, up to 1080p.
• Master volume. A real volume slider, with MUTE folded into it.
• Disks you can write to. BLANK to insert a fresh disk, FORMAT to prepare it, then SAVE into it from BASIC. Deleting files works too, and a disk can be write-protected or exported back out as a .d64 file. It all runs through the real 1541 DOS, so a program cannot tell the difference.
• Tapes you can record. The datasette now writes as well as reads. Insert a BLANK tape, press REC, and SAVE"NAME",1 puts your program on it. Then download it as a .tap file. The full five keys are there (REC, PLAY, REW, FF, STOP) with a tape counter, and the write-protect tabs block recording the way a real cassette does. Turbo savers work too: the write line is timed to the cycle, so what lands on the tape is what a real C64 would have written.
• Tidier save states. Rename a state from the Load State dialog, and find it again in an alphabetical list.
• A sharper picture. The display is now sized in whole multiples of the C64's own framebuffer, so no scaling step softens a pixel. On a phone held upright it fills the width.
• A new Retro Vibes scene. An 80s bedroom, and a reworked IK+ Sunset built after the original game's backdrops.
• A welcome screen. First-time visitors get a short introduction with a teaser video instead of landing cold in the machine.
• A much smaller install. The installable app went from about 12 MB to 1.9 MB, and the documentation now works offline once installed.
• Fixes. Audio no longer lags after a keypress or when returning to the tab, gamepads work in the installed app, mouse and paddle inputs report correctly on an empty port, and the Android soft keyboard behaves.

2026.7.0 — July 19, 2026#

The first public release.