FAQ

NEURA/8 is the Commodore 64 rebuilt entirely in software, and in time the whole Commodore family with it: the PET, the VIC-20, the Plus/4, the 128, the 1541 drive and the Amiga.

Every chip inside the machine is recreated, cycle by cycle, exactly as it behaved. It isn't a video of a Commodore, or a collection of old files. It's the computer itself, working. Switch it on and you get READY. Load a program from 1984 and it runs as it did then.

Not yet. NEURA/8 opens to visitors machine by machine, each one when it is finished, and the Commodore 64 comes first. The User's Guide is written as the machines are built, so it is ready when they are.

No. NEURA/8 runs in your web browser. There is nothing to download and nothing to set up.

No. NEURA/8 is still in development, and its price hasn't been set yet. There will be a way to try it before you buy.

NEURA/8 is built by NeuraWeb Global, Inc., founded by S. Vincent Anthony, who first switched on a Commodore at twelve and never forgot how it worked. Read the story.

No. There is no tracking, no surveillance and no data extraction. The only thing kept is what you choose to send us, such as a message through Contact, and it is never used to track you or sold to anyone.

No. Every Commodore starts up by running the programs in its ROMs: the KERNAL (the operating system), BASIC and the character set. NEURA/8's ROMs are our own, NexusROM+, written from scratch in 6502 assembly. None of Commodore's code is copied.

Programs talk to the ROMs through fixed addresses. NexusROM+ keeps every one of them, and every build checks each address, so a program finds what it expects where it expects it.

A 1541 is a computer of its own: it has its own processor, its own memory, two chips of its own, and its own operating system (its DOS) in its own ROM. NEURA/8 rebuilds it the same way as the C64: the drive's processor and chips run beside the C64's, and the disk turns under the drive's head as the real one's did, the bits on it as a 1541 writes them. Its DOS is ours too, NexusROM+ 1541, written from scratch.

That matters for the programs that send their own code into the drive to load faster, or to check a disk is an original: they need the drive itself, not only its answers. Loading, saving, the directory, the drive's messages and its commands (formatting a disk, scratching, renaming and copying files) all work today.

Every build runs the whole engine through its tests, and nothing that fails is ever released. The processor alone is checked against tens of thousands of cases; the ROMs are checked through the keyboard, the disk, the tape and the serial line, the way a person and a program would use them.

Before a machine is called finished, the same programs run on Commodore's original and on ours, side by side, and everything a program can see is compared:

No. NEURA/8 isn't competing with Commodore. Commodore built the machines, and they're the reason any of this exists. NEURA/8 keeps their machines running, exactly as they were, for people today.

The C64 comes first, and it is being finished now, with its 1541 disk drive and its Datassette. The rest of the family follows, each rebuilt the same way, chip by chip, with its own ROMs.

Yes, after the 1541. Each drive has its own DOS, so each gets its own NexusROM+; most of what the 1541's does (the directory, the files, the messages) carries over to them.

No, and you don't need to: your Commodore already is the machine. NEURA/8 is the machine rebuilt in software, for today's computers and browsers.

Yes, with room to spare. NEURA/8 runs the whole C64 several times faster than a real one needs, so it can hold exactly the real machine's speed. It is measured the same way at every build.

Yes, whatever you have to hand: the number pad on your keyboard, the arrow keys and Space, any game controller, or, on a phone or tablet, a stick and a fire button drawn under the screen. The User's Guide shows which key is which.

Yes: disk images (.d64, and .g64, which keeps a disk exactly as it is, copy protection included) and tape images (.tap) are what the machine reads, turbo tapes included. On the C64's page you put one in with a button, or by dropping the file on the screen, and take it away again with everything the C64 wrote on it. That page opens to visitors with the C64.

That is the goal: every program, exactly as it ran then. The C64 isn't finished yet, so not everything runs today. Every night the whole software shelf is run, to find what still breaks, and each failure is fixed in the machine itself, never by changing the program.

If a program doesn't run, tell us: that is how the last gaps are found.

On neura8.nw, and on petscii.nw, the Commodore bulletin board: its Machines, and RUN IT on the titles in its Software Library. Each machine there moves onto NEURA/8 as it opens.

We are always looking for volunteers and developers: 6502 programmers, people who know the hardware, testers with real machines, writers. Get in touch and choose Volunteer or Developer.

Report it: tell us the program, the machine you ran it on, and what happened. Each one is checked against the real machine and fixed in NEURA/8.