Some fun news for Commodore 64 fans and enthusiasts--the latest beta for the Commodore 64 .prg generator, C64PrgGen, is now available for download! This nifty utility gives you a handy Commodore 64 program development utility for Windows. Put simply, you can type (or copy and paste) in your Commodore 64 BASIC or machine code into C64PrgGen and it will both assemble and run your code with a single click. C64PrgGen automatically generates a .prg file, which can run directly in your favorite Commodore 64 emulator or on the real hardware using the typical methods for transferring and running "ROM" files. Neat stuff and well worth checking out.

Just a quick note that our book, Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, is part of Amazon's "Game On: Featured Game Design Titles" promotion, as seen here. The best part? This means that you can presently get it for a low, low price of - as of this writing - just $14.56! Be sure to check it out. Also, be sure to check out a different, but similarly valuable promotion for Wii Fitness for Dummies, including a $5 mail-in rebate!

Elodie Dufroux sent along the following press release for their compilation of classics, SILMARILS COLLECTION PC, which sounds like an unbeatable value (click through to see additional information and images):

SILMARILS COLLECTION PC now available!

Paris, France – March 16, 2010: DotEmu, developer/ publisher dedicated to classics 80’s/90’s video games over new platforms is pleased to announce today’s launch of Silmarils Collection for PC. Initially published on Atari ST, Amiga and PC/DOS, the 16 Silmarils’ games of this collection, among others Deus, the Ishar trilogy, Robinson’s Requiem, will enable you to live or live again magic adventures taking place in mystic universes!

A large number of fans have already showed up their enthusiasm and interest for this collection and will be pleased to get these so acclaimed games. More information on www.silmarils-collection.com.

Ciro Continisio of ENHANCED PRE$$ group has asked us to pass along the following press release for this interesting initiative for the iPhone and iPod Touch that needs English-speaking beta testers:

From April onwards Mac-users will be able to use Valve's Steam platform natively on OS X. Using Steam on OS X was possible before by using Wine but compatibility was varying. Wine is a set of open source Windows Libraries ported over to Linux/OS X allowing Windows applications and games to run natively within the Linux/OS X environment. Together with the appearance of a Native OS X Steam variant the recently announced Portal-2 will appear on Steam simultaneously in both PC- and OS X flavors.

Game Developers using Visual Studio are able to create games that can be made cross compatible between Windows (Microsoft) Operating Systems, including Windows Phone 7 and the Xbox 360. 90% of the generated code is the same between the various target platforms, leaving about 10% for platform specific stuff. Perhaps one could look at it as some sort of SDL-layer?

In this article, Microsoft demos a cross-platform game that can be run on a computer with Windows 7, a mobile phone 7, and the Xbox 360 console. A video shows how a Microsoft employee starts the game on one device, continues it and finishes it on others. The progress made within the game is automatically transferred from one platform to the other - probably by use of the Windows Live platform.

Windows Phone 7 development is mostly done with Silverlight and XNA.

Cross platform gaming between PC and Xbox 360 was possible before, just take a look at the game Shadowrun.

Sorry if this is not news to anyone, I tend to fall behind but this is new to me. This is not my vid and I take credit for nothing, just passing on the news and this interesting video interview.

Sir Clive - world famous in at least the UK and Europe - has recently told reporters that he doesn't use any computer in his day to day life. The current generation of computers suffer from bad design flaws and are the absolute opposite of being conservative in their use of internal memory - according to Sir Clive. And he's the man who knows what he is talking about as he is the designer of the Timex1000/ZX80/ZX81 series of machines that came out in 1980 featuring a whopping 1Kb of RAM and a basic interpreter.

All this and more can all be read in a recent interview in the UK paper the Guardian. It seems that even all email correspondence is all printed out by his secretary and handled by him on paper. That would actually cause the bald red-bearded Sir to be somewhat of an environmental hazard, wouldn't it? Oh, by the look of the photograph in the article he actually lost the beard. Well Sir Clive will be celebrating is 70th birthday this year and perhaps it does make him look a little younger. One does tend to get this Gandalfian/Dumbledorian look when sporting a grey/white beard... Sir Clive has an extensive track record when it comes to the ZX Spectrum line of microcomputers that did shape a large part of computer history - at least in Europe, Brazil and Russia.

He's currently devoting his energy to design yet another energy efficient electric car. Let it be noted that his last attempt called the ' C 5 ' bombed! Perhaps he'll be more fortunate this time around. Go Sir Clive!

While normally we shy away from posting about discounts and other deals, since our latest book, Wii Fitness for Dummies, is part of Dummies Month 2010 (all of March), we couldn't pass up sharing this information. Save $5 via mail-in rebate on any Dummies purchase of $6.99 and above, valid in the US and Canada. In addition, a wide range of stores are running various discount programs, listed here. Been holding off on that purchase of Wii Fitness for Dummies or other Dummies book? Now is your chance to stop waiting and save some extra money in the process!