What the petty squabbles between computer users often fail to recognise is that each computer is ideal for a different purpose. The Commodore is great for games, but, let's face it, is not exactly going to infiltrate any top business institutions.

As some C64 users upgrade for greater applications potential and a gateway to multimedia, many will find the PC far from ideal. Careering back down the learning curve, they will have to dump their obsolete software and programming experience. But all is not lost, with the help of a shareware emulator C64 enthusiasts can hide a software Commodore inside a PC.

This emulator can be copied freely as shareware, but suffers from premature release. Hoping to pick up on feedback, Miha Peternel released his version prior to the final cut, which was due out in November 1993. Miha Peternel is no longer at the address quoted, however, and this version appears to be the only one to have seeped through the shareware network. The trouble is it has a major bug: the sound doesn't work. And while it should be compatible with a Soundblaster card to the PC's internal speaker, all it can manage is a high-pitched squeak with blobs of tune buried way beneath it.

The emulator does look and feel like a Commodore, though. The graphics and colours appear authentic and the keyboard has been intelligently reproduced, TAB has become RUN/STOP, the Commodore key lies behind ALT, and F12 (whose position varies from PC to PC) acts as the RESTORE key. The conversion is so intuitive that most of the time you can unleash your fingers on the keyboard and the functions are more or less where you would expect to find them.

To get things running smoothly, you have to balance the sliders for the raster and the screen refresh rate. The raster rate represents a compromise between speed and smoothness. If it's set too slow for your PC, the sprites will jerk from one side of the screen to the other, without even ghosting in the middle. If it's set too fast, things grind to a halt, devoting all the processor time to refreshing the sprites. Once this rate is set sensibly, the screen refresh rate can be adjusted to the fastest setting possible - this tends to suddenly halt everything when it reaches its optimum point.

Running beneath both screen sliders is a clock speed control. The easiest way to adjust this is to run a program and then play with the sliders until everything moves at the Commodore's normal speed. Although fiddly at first, the settings enable the emulator to run at its maximum potential on all computers, instead of dithering to account for extra fast PCs.

Transferring software from a 1541 disk drive is no problem if you're handy with a soldering iron or if you take the instructions included to a local electrical specialist. Software can be transferred using programs on the disk, although it's a little bit awkward, because the PC needs to be artificially slowed down first. Images for use with the emulator can then be saved to a DOS format disk. Quirky formats will bring things to a halt, making some commercial games non-transferrable. A comfortable on-screen message would have been nice during the dark delay in unpacking software. The first few times I tried to load a game, I assumed the machine had hung up, when it was in fact too busy unscrambling the game to worry about good manners.

For anyone interested in writing software using the emulator, there is the option to convert from DOS back to a 1541 drive for more mainstream distribution. The main barrier to program development will be the lack of utilities, unless you transfer them all yourself. The software supports 6510 CPU instructions, memory management and sprites and, to all intents and purpose, behaves just like a C64. BASIC programmers will certainly have no problem. Machine coders might be dubious about the risk of the firmware differing somewhere along the line, though.

You'll need to be packing a fairly fast PC to really enjoy this emulator. A 386 running at 40Mhz or a 486 at 33MHz is recommended, although there is also a cut-down 286 demo on the disk. VGA display is recommended for best results.

If you've played with fishtank simulators and personalised backgrounds on the PC, this emulator is ideal for you. At the end of the day, it's a trainspotter-ly gimmick, separating the tinklers from the real enthusiast. Lacking the sound and bogged down by the relative difficulty of transferring software, it's not ideal for entertainment. Being short of utilities and a genuine user base on the format, it's not perfect for programming. That said, until the full version surfaces, this one will be welcome on may a hard disk. A real home from home.

1. Looks and feels authentic.
2. Contains instructions for software transfer.
3. It's shareware!

1. Not so golden silence!
2. The speed calibrations can be tiresome at first.