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Although there was a bit of a big deal made about the 30th anniversary of the Commodore PET, there's also another little-known machine that some of you may have heard of, which is now in its 25th year - the Commodore 64. This 8-bit computer was launched in January 1982 at the Winter Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, and went on to become a worldwide phenomenon. And I'm happy to report that there has been a recent spate of games released for it, and they're ready to be downloaded.

The first of note utilises the RR-Net adapter and ETH64 cartridge and allows a game to be played via a network such as the Internet. The game is called Artillery Duel. Although graphically sparse, it's a turn-based affair, based on an Atari 2600 release of the same name (though many will be more familiar with Worms, which enhanced the basic concept and added humour to the proceedings). The object is to score a direct hit against your opponent by firing a projectile over a mountain.

Although currently in beta-testing stages, this version features a chat mode, so that you can talk to your nemesis during the game, and is thought to be the first C64 release that can be played over the Internet.

The eventual hope for this project is to rewrite the PET classic Weather War (also released for the C64 in 1982), so that can be played via the net, and maybe even to develop a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) based around the much heralded Ultima series of games. This should give C64 gaming a boost, certainly as the available networking hardware available for the machine has until now been used for more mundane things such as browsing the world wide web. My personal hope, though, is that Protovision's rather excellent Advanced Space Battle could be turned into an online experience - now that would be something.

To find out more about Artillery Duel, head over to home.ica.net/~leifb/commodore/duel/index.html, and if you'd like more information about the various networking options for the C64, take a look at either www.protovision-online.de or www.jschoenfeld.com.

Next up, we have a couple of projects from Richard Bayliss. Brain Strain is a turn-based puzzle game for one or two players, and requires you to be good at mental arithmetic as you must take one to four credits from the centre box to either take the last four, or to leave your opponent with three or less. It's a best of three affair to determine the winner, and a different number of credits will start each round.

Richard has also revived Bomb Chase, in which hero Smudge must collect twenty bombs from each arena whilst avoiding his roaming foe and other hazards; www.redesign.sk/tnd64 is the place to find these two.

As if there isn't enough Commodore news this week, Jason Winters has turned his C64DTV (the C64 plug and play joystick] into a PDA. Well, sort of.

Containing a 5-inch screen, 0.4 watt internal speakers and being powered by six rechargeable AA batteries and even having a flip lid, the Picodore 64 could be the device for C64 fans everywhere, if someone would manufacture them that is. Nonetheless, a full explanation with images is available from www.picobay.com/projects for those of you who have the necessary skills to build your own.

Then again, there are emulators available for pocket-sized technologies already available, so I guess I'll have to do with that. I'll bid you a farewell until next week then.