Commodore 64/128 Utilities

Below are some useful utilities that can be used in converting files, playing back sound, etc.

SD Card Tools

These utilities are for use with SD2IEC devices which replace your official CBM floppy disk drive with an SD card reader and associated firmware to quickly load Commodore programs from an SD card.

Title Description Download
SD Formatter A Windows utility for formatting SD cards to FAT16 or FAT32, for use with an SD2IEC device.
CBM FileBrowser v1.6 A program launcher for Commodore machines. Even if it was originally intended for devices with sd2iec firmware, it works also with any CBM drive (without sd2iec functions of course). Works on the following devices: MMC2IEC, SD2IEC, uIEC, C64-SD, 1541, 1541-II, 1571, and 1581. It's easy to use - just install your SD drive into your Commodore (64/128/VIC-20/C16/Plus4), load the program and run it. Visit official site here for more information.
SD2IEC Downgrader The original SD2IEC flash ROM. If you ever need to downgrade to the original release, this file is the one. Some alpha version of the SD2IEC need a downgrade to this before upgrading to a later version. To use, just put the .bin file into the root of a blank SD card, insert the SD card into your SD2IEC and power on.

 

Tape/Disk Conversion

These utilities allow you to edit disk images, convert from one file format to another, or get programs off your old audio cassettes and into your computer, or vice-versa. Naturally, this requires a cassette player, a suitably configured sound card and cabling between the two. Also provided are disk utilities that allow you to edit disk image files (.D64).

Title Description Download
D64 Editor

Runs in Windows and released in Nov 2016, this tool is an editor for .d64 image files. The author's site is here. Be sure to read the readme.txt and version.txt included with the program. Also make sure you copy all 3 of the fonts into the %windows%\fonts directory. I'd recommend downloading just the executible file first (the first link to the right), and if you get errors when trying to run it, then download the full setup program (the 2nd link to the right). Currently it does the following:

  • Read D64 files, display the directory, move files around the directory, rename files.
  • Export files from the D64 into PRG files
  • Import files into the D64 with autodetection for P00 files.
  • View/Edit the BAM
  • View the block chain of files on the D64
  • Create new blank D64 files, clean existing D64's
  • View and modify blocks on the disk in hex.
  • Automatic check for crosslinked files on the D64.
  • View the directory using the native c64 font
  • SEQ File Viewer using the c64 font with PETASCII->ASCII conversion option
  • Drag and Drop functionality. Drag D64's onto the main screen to load them, drag other files to import them.
  • Preliminary support for importing T64's
  • A filename builder to enable easy use of the C64 Characterset in filenames

Full source code can be downloaded here.

D64Pro Another Windows-based .d64 file editor.
Big Blue Reader Transfer CP/M files from a C64-CP/M disk to a C128 or even MS-DOS disk. Try Big Blue Reader for C128/C64 with the help of a C64/C128 emulator like WinVICE.
64DMon An editor for 1541 .d64 disk image files. Also included is v100 beta.
64TAPVOC Tomaz Kac's Windows utility for converting .TAP tape image files to .VOC PCM audio format. Source code is not included
64utils TAP <-> VOC Converters & Play TAP v0.03b by Tomaz Kac. Converts CCS64 .TAP tape image files to and from .VOC format
TAPWAV Luigi Di Fraia's Windows program for converting .TAP tape images to .WAV PCM audio format. Source code is not included
TAPWAV Luigi Di Fraia's Windows program for converting .TAP tape images to .WAV PCM audio format. Source code is not included
Turbo Tape Loader v1.3 This MS-DOS program, whose Turbo Pascal source code is included, extracts files from audio files digitized from Commodore 64 tapes in Turbo Tape format
C2N Converts Commodore C2N pulse streams to binary format that consists of 192-byte tape headers and variable-length program blocks. Tested on the PET, VIC-20, C64, C128, plus/4, and on the Tangerine Oric-1. The program can be interfaced to a cassette drive emulator device C2N232 via RS-232, and it can output the pulses as sinusoidal waves in raw PCM format.
Version 1.0.3 adds preliminary support for tape images (.tap files). Version 1.1 adds support for the Tangerine Oric-1 tape format. Version 1.1.1 adds readable error messages for Windows. Version 1.1.3 switches the C2N232 to idle mode when finished. Version 1.1.4 detects data blocks (OPEN,PRINT#,...) properly. See also http://www.funet.fi/pub/cbm/crossplatform/transfer/C2N232/
CBMTT v1.1 This MS-DOS program converts Commodore tapes to PC and back. Source code not included. Uploaded by the author, Richard Storer <rstorer@cyberspace.org>.
Tape64 Converts 16-bit audio samples to the TAP format used by CCS64 and VICE. MS-DOS version. Uploaded by the author, <andreas.matthies@gmx.net>.
Tape64 WIN32 Converts 16-bit audio samples to the TAP format used by CCS64 and VICE. Windows version. Uploaded by the author, <andreas.matthies@gmx.net>.

 

File Conversion

These utilities convert program files or BASIC program listings from one file format into another.

Title Description Download
Image Creator Beta 0.9 A utility for converting disks between .D64 images and 1541 floppies. Only supports device #8 or #9 so the CMD "Swap" button and SuperSnapshot cartridge will both come in handy
IBM D64->1541 Jochen Adler's single purpose utility to extract .D64 files from PC floppies and write them directly to 1541 disks. Requires a 1571 or 1581 drive to read the PC-formatted disk
CBM Convert for Windows 32-bit MS Windows version of cbmconvert 2.1.2, a conversion utility that reads and writes files in different Commodore-specific archive file formats, disk images or tape images. This version was created with a cross-compiler version of gcc 2.95 on Linux, targeted for the MinGW platform. The program requires the library file MSVCRT.DLL, which should be distributed with Windows since version 95 OSR2, or Internet Explorer since version 5. The second download, CSDPMI3B.zip is a binary distribution that is needed to run CBM Convert.
CBM Convert for DOS 32-bit MS-DOS binary version of cbmconvert 2.0.4, a conversion utility that reads and writes files in different Commodore-specific archive file formats or disk images. This is the MS-DOS binary version created with DJGPP; the source code is in the ../unix/ directory. You will also need the file csdpmi3b.zip. This file was provided by Wolfgang Moser.

 

The second download, CSDPMI3B.zip is a binary distribution that is needed to run CBM Convert.
Copy2D64 Copies MS-DOS files to 1541 disk images, includes Pascal source code.In compressed .ARJ format. Use UNARJ or other decompression tool that supports the .ARJ standard to extract.
List64 List64 v0.67 (FREEWARE) - C64 file image viewer, lists the contents of D64,X64,T64,Lynx,Zipcode File/4/5,Arkive,PC64,Net64,Lbr files. Supports 40 Track images(ZipCode,D64,X64). Shows size in bytes, track/sector and REL file infos,etc..., all infos you can gain out of the several formats listed above.
Author: Stefan Weber <ho1459@hof.baynet.de>
PCGEOS03 MS-DOS programs (including german & english documentation and TURBO PASCAL source) that extract GEOS converted files (.cvt) from disk images and translate GEOS texts, pictures and fonts to MS-DOS. Uploaded by the author, Jochen Metzinger <1metzing@informatik.uni-hamburg.de>.
Star Utilities A pack of utilities for handling disk images, tape images, Lynx archives and ZipCode archives. Freeware, uploaded by the author, sta@ludens.elte.hu.

 

Text Conversion

These utilities convert text formats from one format to another.

Title Description Download
cbm2asc A PETSCII to ASCII converter. Supports also BASIC and SpeedScript. Source code not included

 

Miscellaneous

Other utilities and drivers for the C64.

Title Description Download
Rossmoller Turbo Process Docoumentations and a disk image for this rare C-64 accelerator card. Now includes a complete scan of the original english manual (in PDF form)
CBMPR11 Allows you to connect a Commodore printer to an IBM PC
LPT IEC v0.9.2 André Fachat's IEEE 488 interface for the PC's printer port. The driver is for Linux. More information is available at http://www.6502.org/users/andre/ieee488/.
CP/M Cartridge boot disk CP/M cartridge boot disk, 1982. This cartridge allowed you to run CP/M software on your Commodore 64. The cartridge is incompatible with the Commodore 128. It was available at least until 1983, but was a complete flop and was pulled from the market, primarily because most CP/M software that was on floppy disk was not readable by the 1541 floppy disk drive which used the GCM encoding scheme instead of CP/M's MFM encoding. This meant that all CP/M software had to be somehow moved across to a Commodore-readable floppy disk. Other tools now exist that allow you to more easily move CP/M software from a CP/M disk to a Commodore disk.
Data20 Programs A disk image of Data20 Display Manager 80-column programs for C64 and VIC-20, including the hard to find, "Plan Manager," (called 64CALC) a spreadsheet program, as well as, "Word Manager," (called 64WP) for the Commodore 64. Here are PDF versions of the Calc and WP manuals.

 

Demos

The demo scene virtually began on the C64!

Title Description Download
Season's Greetings Perhaps the earliest of C-64 demos, this may be the one that started it all! Excellent use of keyboard graphics and sprites to create a convincing display without a bitmap

 

Commodore 128 CP/M

A separate page is dedicated to software that will aid in getting your Commodore 128 up and running in CP/M mode. There are downloads of CP/M disk images as well as other tools, utilities and applications for you to use.