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Previously Rejected Commodore 64 Emulator Approved and Available on App Store [Updated]

Sunday September 6, 2009 11:09 am PDT by Arnold Kim
As reported on iPhone game site TouchArcade.com, Apple has finally approved a Commodore 64 emulator called C64 [App Store] for sale on the App Store. The emulator had originally been rejected by Apple in June for violations of the SDK agreement, despite being officially licensed from both rights holders of the Commodore ROMs and the individual games bundled.

Apple has since been in contact with the company and a slightly modified version of the application has been approved for sale on the App Store. In particular, Apple appears to have requested the removal of the Commodore BASIC interpreter from the application which allows running arbitrary code.

The application bundles 5 games (Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck, and Jack Attack) and the company plans on offering additional (properly licensed) games for sale and download. The cost of the additional games will be dependent on the conditions of the license holder but most are expected to be in the $0.99-$1.99 range (or even Free). The emulator only allows you to run these officially offered disk images and will not run arbitrary disks.

This video shot by TouchArcade shows the emulator in action, but shows titles that are not yet available, such as Bruce Lee and International Karate.


Manomio has said that they are actively working on bringing additional titles to the emulator.

Update: C64 has been pulled from the App Store Apple after it was discovered that the BASIC interpreter could be re-enabled through the software. A revised version of the application addressing this issue has been submitted to Apple for approval.

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