MOS VIC-II

1982

MOS Technology's Commodore 64 graphics chip, generating its tiled backgrounds, eight hardware sprites and colour video.

Emulators

Emulator	Type	License	Site
C64 Forever	downloadable	Commercial	Website ↗
CCS64	downloadable	Shareware	Website ↗
Denise	downloadable	Freeware	Website ↗
Emu64	downloadable	GPL-3.0	Website ↗
Frodo	downloadable	GPL-2.0	Website ↗
Hoxs64	downloadable	Freeware	Website ↗
Micro64	downloadable	Freeware	Website ↗
Power64	downloadable	Shareware	Website ↗
VICE	downloadable	GPL-2.0	Website ↗
VirtualC64	downloadable	GPL-3.0	Website ↗
Xemu	downloadable	GPL-2.0	Website ↗
YACE64	downloadable	Freeware	Website ↗
Z64K	downloadable	Freeware	Website ↗
c128	online	MIT	Website ↗
c64js	online	MIT	Website ↗

External technical references for programming MOS VIC-II and for writing emulators.

Resource	Type	Notes
MOS 6567 VIC-II Preliminary Datasheet (PDF) ↗	Datasheet	Original Commodore VIC-II preliminary datasheet
VIC-II Raster Interrupts - Bauer Article §3.12 ↗	Interrupt list	Raster/collision/lightpen IRQ sources and timing
VIC-II Registers ($D000-$D02E) - Bauer Article §3.2 ↗	Memory map	All 47 registers, bit-exact behaviour documented
MOS 6567 VIC-II Datasheet - Pinout & Signals (PDF) ↗	Pinout	40-pin pinout and electrical signal descriptions
MOS Technology VIC-II - Wikipedia ↗	Pinout	Pinout diagram, register table, chip variants
VIC-II Graphics Programming - Codebase64 ↗	Programming	Screen modes, sprites, FLI, hardware tricks
VIC-II and FLI Timing (1/3) - C64 OS ↗	Programming	Cycle-level bus/AEC/RAS-CAS timing explained
The MOS 6567/6569 Video Controller (VIC-II) - Christian Bauer ↗	Reference	Definitive VIC-II reference for emulator authors
MOS Technology VIC-II - Wikipedia ↗	Reference	Architecture overview, modes, NTSC/PAL variants
VICE-testprogs - VICII conformance tests ↗	Test suite	Cycle-exact VIC-II regression tests for emulators