Type-in software guides - typing retro software with modern text editors

• VICE emulator suite - comes with both emulator and petcat

1. Type the Commodore BASIC listing into a text file using a modern text editor.
   • Consult this website for a mapping of glyphs to their petcat encoding.
   • Consult this website to find out how certain screen codes affect the display - this is useful when they're hard to read.
   • Note that typing lowercase for characters which appear uppercase is deliberate.
2. Run the following command to convert the BASIC text file into a .PRG:
   • Commodore 64, VIC-20/VIC-1001, MAX Machine: petcat -w2 -o FILE.prg FILE.bas
   • Commodore 16: petcat -w3 -o FILE.prg FILE.bas
   • Commodore 128: petcat -w70 -o FILE.prg FILE.bas

• Commodore 64 (Japanese): Open the x64 VICE emulator, Preferences → Settings, Machine → Model → Japanese, Close, drag .prg file onto emulator window.
• VIC-1001 (Japanese): Open the xvic VICE emulator, Preferences → Settings, Machine → Model → VIC1001, Memory expansions → Common configurations → 3KiB (block 0), Close, ALT-F9 to soft reset, then drag .prg onto the emulator window.

Guide provided via Gaming Alexandria.

• fbastool

1. Type the Family BASIC program listing into a text file using a modern text editor.
   • Use an IME of choice to input Unicode katakana.
2. Run ./fbastool basic -e NAME.txt NAME.prg to create a NAME.prg file.
3. Run ./fbastool record NAME.prg to create a NAME.prg.wav file - this can then be loaded in Family BASIC using the LOAD command.

NOTE: If you can acquire a legal copy of a Family BASIC V3 ROM, the VirtuaNES guide provides a better way to encode BG GRAPHICS.

1. Run ./fbastool bgedit NAME.gfx to open a GUI-based editor following the Micom BASIC layout.
   • Note that, currently, kana cannot be input in this interface - this is a known issue.
2. Run ./fbastool record NAME.gfx to create a NAME.gfx.wav file - this can then be loaded in Family BASIC using the LOADS command.

• Download zxtext2p.
• Download a ZX81 emulator of choice (for example, EightyOne).

1. Type the ZX81 listing into a text file using a modern text editor.
   • Consult the zxtext2p documentation for special characters/inverse video/etc. information.
2. Run zxtext2p.exe -o FILE.p FILE.txt to convert into a tape file (.p extension).

1. Launch EightyOne, File → Open Tape, “FILE.p”
2. Wait for the tape to load.
3. Press “R” (RUN), then ENTER.

• zmakebas (source only)
  • TODO: Provide Windows binaries!
• Any ZX Spectrum emulator of choice; the author used ZEsarUX.

1. Type the ZX Spectrum listing into a text file using a modern text editor.
   • The zmakebas README lists notes on typing special characters.
2. Run zmakebas -o FILE.tap -n NAME FILE.txt to convert into a tape file (.tap extension).