C64 emulator back on the App Store

can't say as i remember any of the included games..... but, man, if this bring us closer to getting some Jet Set Willy action on my iPhone, i'm all about it.

The latest version of Frodo in CVS on cebix is under GPL; however, Manomio did acquire a non-transferrable commercial license of Frodo from the author, Christian Bauer.

So... What exactly is the license state of Frodo on which this is based?

Frodo isn't GPL, according to the source available on http://frodo.cebix.net/ . An extract from the license is: "It may not - not even in parts - used for commercial purposes without explicit written permission by the author. Permission to use it for non-commercial purposes is hereby granted als long as my copyright notice remains in the program. You are not allowed to use the source to create and distribute a modified version of Frodo."

We can only assume that they've got permission from the author?

If it is GPL, the source of c64 should be released... If it isn't, and it's using the above license, the author's permission should have been explicitly obtained but seeing as they're relying on the GPL for Frodo I suspect they haven't.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Prices have been announced: "We expect individual titles to be priced @ USD$0.99 and game packs for USD$1.99 - some publishers may vary"
http://twitter.com/manomio/status/5611429937

They are using cracked games, simply because it is really hard to find the original games after so many years. Though the games are cracked, they are still propperly licensed.

As far as I remember, the first version of C64 emulator came with cracked(!) games, the german mac site macnotes.de wrote some time ago. After entering the basic interpreter they were able to run the games via LOAD "... and could even see the crack intros (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.macnotes.de%2F2009%2F09%2F09%2Fkommentar-c64-auf-dem-iphone%2F&sl=de&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8).

Can anyone confirm if that is still the case with the new version? Do they plan to sell cracked games via in app purchases ? ;)

Although these games are pretty old, they actually should be properly licensed, when being sold through someone else...

The funny thing is that there are plenty of emulator applications that can run user written code. All of the iPhone HP calculator emulators support user programs, for example. Now, some might argue that a programmable calculator is not as sophisticated as a BASIC machine like the C64 but in a strict sense they are equivalent by virtue of being Turing complete. In any case, a C64 BASIC program running in a sandbox can do no more damage to the iPhone OS than an HP calculator running a program. Heck, one of the HP calculator apps, i41CX+, even has extended functions that allow programs to access the internet so it could be argued that its programming environment is more powerful than C64 BASIC which is not internet aware! It's hard to understand what rationale is behind Apple's paranoia with 8-bit computer emulators...

"Apple doesn't want anyone running code on their devices"

Hang on, if we pay for them, aren’t they *our* devices?

I just bought the app, nostalgia... The included games are, well, awful. It's a nice way to see how things changed over the years.

And, I hate to say it, I believe this app may get into trouble soon: it's based on the Frodo C64 emulator, which is released under GPL. The information page states that you can get the Frodo source code upon request, but it doesn't say that you can get the *full* app source code upon request. There is no way one can argue that this app isn't a derived work. So unless Manomio obtained a separate commercial license, this smells like asking for trouble...

So remind me again, all ye Apple defenders, why it's in our best interests not to have (well-sandboxed) code-running apps? It seems to me it would be nice to be able to run my various little c programs on my iPhone, and even write new ones while traveling.