• CPU: MOS Technology 8500 (the 6510/8500 being a modified 6502 with an integrated 8-bit I/O port) 0.985 MHz (PAL)
• RAM: 64 KiB (65,535 bytes)
• Color RAM: 0.5 KiB
• ROM: 20 KiB (7 KiB KERNAL, 4 KiB character generator providing two 2 KiB character sets)
• Video hardware: MOS Technology VIC-II MOS 8569 (PAL), 16 colors
• Text mode: 40×25; user-defined characters; smooth scrolling
• Bitmap modes: 320×200, 160×200 (multicolor)
• Sprites: 8 hardware sprites, 24×21 pixels
• Sound hardware: MOS Technology 8580 “SID”, 3 voices, ADSR programmable.
• I/O ports: High-quality Y/C (S-Video) (8-pin DIN plug) used with some Commodore video monitors (DIN-to-phono plug converter delivered with monitor), Composite video (one-signal video output to monitor included in aforementioned 8-pin DIN plug, and separate integrated RF modulator antenna output, which also carries sound, to TV on an RCA socket), 2 x screwless DE9M game controller ports (Atari 2600 de facto standard, supporting one digital joystick each, Cartridge slot (slot for edge connector with 6510 CPU address/data bus lines and control signals, as well as GND and voltage pins; used for program modules)

MESS supports the emulation of c64gs with two cart slots, “cartridge1” (cart1) and “cartridge2” (cart2), for cart dumps in .crt and .80 format. Some cartridges may require more than one image: if you have any of these, please contact us because we would like to fix support for them.

• .80 files are loaded to 0x8000.
• .crt ROMs are loaded to the addresses specified in crt file.

To use “cartridge1” (cart1) or “cartridge2” (cart2) slots in MESS, simply launch

mess c64gs -cart1 "C:\pathtogame\gamename.crt"

and the game will start (we support two cartridge slot for images which require multiple files to be loaded at different locations, but the support is only partial because we don't have access to any of these images). Also, currently only few of the available types of .crt files are supported.

Note that .prg files are often cartridge images as well, but in MESS they are assigned to the quickloader.

The Commodore 64 Games System (often abbreviated C64GS) was the cartridge-based game console version of the popular Commodore 64 home computer. It was released by Commodore, in 1990, as a competitor in the console market. It was released in Europe only and it became a considerable commercial failure.

Support from games companies was very limited, as many were unconvinced that the C64GS would have been a success. Commodore itself never produced or published a single title for the C64GS beyond the bundled four-game cartridge. Among the software houses which supported the Commodore console, Ocean Software was probably the most supportive.

The software bundled with the C64GS, a four-game cartridge containing “Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun”, “International Soccer”, “Flimbo's Quest” and “Klax”, was likely the most well-known on the system. These games, with the exception of “International Soccer”, were previously ordinary tape-based games, but their structure and control systems (no keyboard needed) made them well-suited to the new console.

The reasons of the commercial failure of the C64GS were multiple. First of all, the lack of good games for the system and the general lack of support by software houses never made the system valuable to console users. Additionally, its hardware (the same as the C64) was already obsolete in 1990, when the competitors were 16-bit machines like the Nintendo SNES and the Sega MegaDrive. Finally, it was sold at the same price as the Commodore 64, making the whole computer a better choice for any interested user.

The C64GS was also plagued with hardware problems. Indeed, the C64GS was not compatible with most of the cartridges already available for the ordinary C64: the lack of a keyboard for the C64GS made many of them impossible to be started. This meant that people often bought secondhand C64 software on cartridge only to find that the games were not compatible. Even worse: the C64 version of “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was designed for the console, but it required the user to press a key to access the game, rendering it unplayable!!

(info based on Wikipedia)

• C64GS at Zimmers.net
• Commodore_64_Games_System