Editing MOS Technology 6581 (section)

=== Emulation ===
{{citation style|section|date=May 2018}}

* In 1989 on the Amiga computer, the demo "The 100 Most Remembered C64 Tunes" and later the PlaySID application was released, developed by [[Per Håkan Sundell]] and Ron Birk. This was one of the first attempts to emulate the SID in software only, and also introduced the file format for representing songs made on the C64 using the SID chip. This later spawned the creation of similar applications for other platforms as well as the creation of a community of people fascinated by SID music, resulting in ''The High Voltage SID Collection'' which contains over 57,000 SID tunes.

A SID file contains the [[MOS Technology 6510|6510]] program code and associated data needed to replay the music on the SID. The SID files have the [[MIME]] media type <code>audio/prs.sid</code>.

The actual file format of a SID file has had several versions. The older standard is PSID (current version V4). The newer standard, RSID, is intended for music that requires a more complete emulation of the Commodore 64 hardware.<ref name="SIDFormat">{{cite web |url=https://hvsc.c64.org/download/C64Music/DOCUMENTS/SID_file_format.txt |format=TXT |title=SID File Format Description |publisher= High Voltage SID Collection |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705131958/https://hvsc.c64.org/download/C64Music/DOCUMENTS/SID_file_format.txt |archive-date=2019-07-05 |access-date=2019-07-05 }}</ref>

The SID file format is not a native format used on the Commodore 64 or 128,<ref name="SIDFormat" /> but a format specifically created for emulator-assisted music players such as ''PlaySID '', ''Sidplay'' and  ''JSidplay2''.<ref name="SFJSidplay2">{{cite web |url=https://sourceforge.net/projects/jsidplay2/ |title=Java SID Player Music Library V2 |author=kenchis |publisher=[[SourceForge]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705133546/https://sourceforge.net/projects/jsidplay2/ |archive-date=2019-07-05 |access-date=2019-07-05 }}</ref> However, there are loaders like ''RealSIDPlay'' and converters such as ''PSID64''<ref name="SFPSID64">{{cite web |url=http://psid64.sourceforge.net/ |title=PSID64 |author=rolandh |publisher=[[SourceForge]] |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705133813/http://psid64.sourceforge.net/ |archive-date=2019-07-05 |access-date=2019-07-05 }}</ref> that make it possible to play a substantial portion of SID files on original Commodore computers.
* SIDPlayer, developed by Christian Bauer and released in 1996 for the [[BeOS]] operating system, was the first SID emulator to replicate the filter section of the SID chip using a second-order [[Infinite impulse response]] filter as an approximation.<ref name="SIDPlayer">{{cite web |url=http://sidplayer.cebix.net/#info |title=SIDPlayer |last=Bauer |first=Christian |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190705134309/http://sidplayer.cebix.net/ |archive-date=2019-07-05 |access-date=2019-07-05 }}</ref>
* In June 1998, a cycle-based SID emulator engine called [[reSID]] became available. The all-software emulator, available with [[C++]] [[source code]], is licensed under the [[GNU General Public License|GPL]] by the author, [[Dag Lem]]. In 2008, Antti Lankila significantly improved the filter and distortion simulation in reSID.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://bel.fi/~alankila/c64-sw/ |title=JSIDPlay2: a cross-platform SID player and C64 emulator |last=Lankila |first=Antti |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120116155333/https://bel.fi/~alankila/c64-sw/ |archive-date=2012-01-16 }}</ref> The improvements were included in [[VICE]] version 2.1 as well.
* In 2007 the JSidplay2 project was released, a pure Java based SID player developed by Ken Händel.<ref name="SFJSidplay2" />