At that time, i thought i had to press a certain key, but "a" and "o" looked very similar in the text box of Bard's Tale and i couldn't make it out. I thought, if i pressed the wrong key, the program would crash.

It depends on the emulator. For x64sc (C64 emulator) the Commodore key is mapped to tab. On x128 (Commodore 128) and xvic (VIC-20) it is mapped to control and the emulated control key is mapped to tab.

Other keys change, based on whether you're using the Positiional or Symbolic layout. Most of the punctuation and math symbols move around, although letters and numbers stay put.

There is, however, one problem with symbolic mapping: some keys really need to be mapped specially regardless (those that do not exist on a PC keyboard). Some examples are the Commodore key, RUN/STOP, Clear/Home.

Remember that the Commodore keyboard was quite different from today's keyboard layouts, and VICE tries its best to map those old layouts to modern ones. Some combinations might be odd and might need you to refer to the VICE emulator documentation or play around a bit to get a feel for them.

Have you tried using the virtual keyboard in lr-vice? On my SNES style controller, it's defaulted to the left shoulder button. It has to be assigned to one of your buttons already as part of the default setup. Try that first... it's a lot easier. @ jamrom2.

This document was generated on 24 December 2025 using a slightly modified version of the texi2html translator version 1.52.

It provides emulation of the Commodore C64, C64DTV, C128, VIC20, PET, PLUS4, SCPU64 and CBM-II computers within a single package. The emulators run as separate programs, but have the same user interface, share the same settings and support the same file formats.

Positional means that the Commodore keyboard is mapped into the physical positions of your “contemporary” keyboard. So no matter what language keyboard you are typing on, the key next to the L will be a colon, the key next to that will be a semicolon, and so forth.

It provides emulation of the Commodore 64, 128, VIC20, PET 8-bit and CBM-II computers within a single package. The emulators run as separate programs, but have the same user interface, share the same settings and support the same file formats.