DRAGON’S DEN, Cheyenne Mountain, Tuesday (NNGadget) — Despite months of negotiations to get a Commodore 64 emulator approved for the iPhone, Apple has pulled the application after just two days after a hack was found that enables the BASIC interpreter.

“Anything capable of allowing programming — any programming — could be a security risk to the iPhone and its users,” said Apple in a statement to the Library of Congress on copyright. “As such, it is absolutely vital for the safety of the nation that we vet every single application and collect 30% on each one.”

Apple software reviewers, who are generally moonlighting from day jobs as TSA airport security policy writers, fear a wave of 1980s-style “hackers” using the iPhone to “dial” into NASA or National Security Agency computers using the accompanying 300-Baud Acoustic-Coupled Modem application. “We had our suspicions when the app lit the user’s face from below in just the right shade of green to show off their cheekbones really photogenically.”

Reviewers were particularly concerned that the BASIC interpreter was originally written by Microsoft. “Of course, their security is famously terrible,” said one reviewer in a break from torturing kittens. “We’d probably get a Commodore 64 virus. And their sense of aesthetics! No way Steve would ever let that through.”

A similar Commodore 64 emulator that gives ten cents to AT&T every time a user runs a game has passed approval in two days.

“A strange phone,” said NSA correspondent “WOPR.” “The only winning move is not to buy.”