10 Amazing Commodore VIC-20 Facts
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- čas přidán 4. 06. 2024
- In this video I look at ten fascinating facts about the 8-bit Commodore VIC-20 computer.
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I remember begging my parents for a home computer in 1982. I wanted the Vic-20, but they came home with a TI 994/A. I think the salesman pushed the TI since it wasnt selling. The TI was superior on paper, but it just didn't have any good games, or software. TI had basically given up on it a year later, so my parents said I could get the VIc-20... but came back with a C64.... No regrets. The C64 was world-changing, but now I kinda miss the Vic20 experience.
Sega in italian sounded strange not just for the word "mezza sega" , but because the very word sega in italian is the slang for male autoeroticism act, so it sounded really strange and funny. We italian sometimes pronounce the sega videogame brand as it was an english word, so we often pronounce it "Syga" so to avoid to pronounce the slang word for male autoeroticism act lol
When Commodore was told to rename the VIC-20 in Germany because of the German F-word, their suggestion was "vixen". Guess what that means in German... strange coincidence, isn't it?
Thanks for the look back at one of my favorite computers. It was my second computer. (First was a Timex Sinclair). I was so excited when I got the Vic, as I had just gotten into digital electronics. I loved how the expansion and user ports made all the data and address buses as well as control signals easily accessible. Started writing programs to control hardware in my breadboard projects. Fun times!
Soon after came the Commodore 64, and the PCs. But there is a special place in my heart for the Vic. I actually still have it packed away somewhere. This video makes me want to power it up for old times sake to see if it still works.
The 80s Rocked! Such a great time of technological discovery.
i remember wanting a ViC 20 when it came out just because "Captain Kirk" was advertising it.. i finally got my hands on one about 5 years ago and i absolutley love it, i think i like it better than the C64.
I think that's a form of blasphemy! lol.
I went to a friend's house and heard the vic20 make a ufo sound. I was hooked. 😄
I got Commodore VIC-20 as one of my first computers as a kid and was fascinated with it typing in all those BASIC programs and saving to tape. Then later got Commodore 64, then C-128.. those were the good old-days...
My first PC… but that was the same Christmas that all my classmates got a C64😂
By 1985, I got a C128. Loved that machine too.
i never had a VIC0 when it was 'current' but got hold of one in the early 90s from an electronics surplus company, that had a load of them in 'untested' stated, and was the VC20 variant which confused me until i found out why the name was changed 😉
My late grandmother had a VIC-20 and my sister and I used to play Cosmic Cruncher on it.
My first computer :) The hours I spent on it! Even though my friends all had Spectrums and the like.. I'd spend hours doing type-in programs (which was MUCH easier than doing the same on the Speccy), and luckily there were lots of budget games for it.
The Vic 20 would’ve been a far superior computer if only at the text was smaller…. and the super expander was built-in.
My first computer there... The family didn't have a lot of money, but thanx to the price war, they were able to get the Vic and a datasette... Couldn't afford games really, but there were LOTS of type-ins... Eventually got the 300 baud VicModem and was able to get online (no RAM expansion, so just really basic online, but it worked..)...
Love playing with the Vic-20 nowadays too (tho I have a 35K RAM expansion and Pi1541 to make some things easier). ;-)
there were plenty of tv commercials for the VIC with Shatner in North America
Fantastic video covering one of my favourite 8 bit home microcomputers. Took me back seeing Sargon II Chess at the end. Thanks for putting all this together and sharing it. Keep up the awesome work :-)
Glad you enjoyed it!
My first computer, such fond memories !
Loved this ….but i love the vic20 still after all these years …
I loved mine,made games,loved the Scott Adams games
The Vic 20 had some of the first commercial games programmed by late Nintendo President Iwata.
@03:19 Whilst the "2001: A Space Odyssey" theory for the VIC-1001 name is plausible, I have always thought that the "1001" probably came from the start location of BASIC ($1001) on the unexpanded/+3K machine.
That's a very convincing theory, I didn't come across that in my research.
@@TheLairdsLair That doesn't surprise me, I am not aware of anyone else who has suggested this theory.
I didn't know much about the VIC20, so this was interesting, thanks!
Even at the time, the 22 column screen was laughed at as a joke. The VIC-20 really should have had a 40x25 screen, which it could have if the 512 bytes of color RAM were allocated to the screen text instead.
Color could have been implemented in a quasi-ZX-81 style, or old school dumb terminal style. Instead of a fixed grid of characters, the next line of text is read sequentially until reading a line terminator. Thus, a line could consume more or less bytes than the screen width, depending on the location of the line terminator or presence of control characters. So, there could be some color control characters in there. This technique is a good match for reading characters during the horizontal blank, and for saving bytes on a low RAM computer.
Cool little machine that ate into the sales for the Atari 400 (and 2600 to an extent) because it was less than 1/2 the price and pretty decent games could be made for it.
While the ti99-4a is brought up as the price battle rival. I believe the Timex 1000 was the actual cause, as for a month or so after release in the US, it became the best selling computer on the market. This $100 computer, scared both TI and Commodore and was the real reason the price battle of these more able machines begun. However only Commodore being the owner of the chip maker and its cut throat design and manufacture could in the end endure these price drops.
There was another marketing disaster before the Vic, in the form of the Chevy Nova. In Spanish / Mexico "No va" means "No go...".
Ah yes, I have heard that before!
I saw a Vic 20 at a friend's place and immediately purchased a Commodore 64 as it has just been released in Canada. It wasn't my first computer, far from it but it was interesting to use and worked pretty much as advertised. BTW, I remember that commercial lad. Brilliant stuff! Thanks man.
I found a whole collection of VIC20 games at Disc Replay today... I almost bought them but I'd have to get a machine to play them with
I'd probably have bought them anyway in the hope I'd find a VIC-20 later.
It's hard to believe we've been on a computer screen for 40 years, and on the internet for 35.... we've watched companies come and go, the desktop publishing industry and the gaming industry rise and fall, the entire computer industry collapse several tiems over, tablets, smart phones, tech billionaires, trade wars, youtube personalities. Most of us gave it a run for the money and most of us failed.
I wonder what I wouldhave done with theose 40 years if I had never seen a VIC-20 ad in a Popular science magazine, competing against the TRS-80's, Timex Sinclairs, and Altair 88's...
Good video except for one thing. For the first 10 years after the Altair came out in '75 (announced Dec. 74) Apple was never "market leading" and never sold more than 3 percent of the total number of machines in a given year. They were simply too expensive for widespread adoption. After '77 it was Radio Shack that was selling more than 100k computers per year which was more than all other companies combined. That continued until until the Vic-20 came out and soon sold more than a million copies. At no time in the early days was Apple even close to being the market leader in terms of machines sold over a given period of time. The "trinity" of home computers was, like a unicorn, completely imaginary.
The Apple II series does have a certain prominence that often gets it included in discussions of "top" computers, but that's a result of the enormous industry support it received, and the fact that there were so many in schools, where most people got to know it.
Brilliant. This brings back memories. You sparked a memory, Im sure we had the 16kb ram expansion and if I remember rightly it was to play Falcon Patrol. I seem to remember that being the only reason we needed the expansion cartridge. Lol
My first computer in the 80s
I wanted a vectrex for Christmas 1983 but was not available so a received a shiny new Vic 20 for Christmas. Peek and Poking I remember to this day lol
I don't believe that the Atari 400's RAM is expandable through its cartridge port. To expand its RAM, you need to disassemble the computer to get access to its single RAM card slot. The Atari 800 has three more easily accessible RAM card slots (no disassembly required), which takes RAM cards that are encased to look like cartridges, but they go into dedicated RAM card slots, not the cartridge ports (neither the left nor the right one on the 800).
In contrast, the VIC-20's cartridge port doubles as a general expansion port that can take ROM cartridges or RAM expansion modules or other devices. The same is true of the C64's and C128's cartridge ports, while we're on the subject. Later Atari 8-bit computers, namely the XL and XE series, have a separate PBI (parallel bus interface) port on the back to serve as a general expansion port, in addition to the cartridge port on the top of the case, while Commodore computers have a single port on the back that serves both purposes.
Very good documentary 💯👍. The “renaming” for the german market also applied to “Vick cough drops” introduced to the german market, as here the “V” is spelled “F”. “Vogel” (Bird) is spelled “Fogel” e.g. So “Vick” would spell “Fick” which is…f*ck…so they changed it to “Wick” 😉
Keep up your good work! Happy 2023! 🎉❤
Wait, so the TOI was not a viable design because it required static RAM chips, which were too expensive, while the VIC-20 used Commodore's massive stockpile of SRAM chips to save money? Aren't SRAM chips static RAM chips? 🤨 They are, so something doesn't seem to make sense here.
When the interlude random-pitch sound effects are playing eg here : czcams.com/video/UwQ-9jR3Y7M/video.html they are much louder than the rest of the video, which is bad if watching the vid at night, and not wanting to wake others up..... Just something to possibly consider for future video editing.....
Good call, and I agree ... 👍
Agreed - i like the touch but the volume is too high
Okay, something weird is going on here. I can't edit my post so here I'm adding a second one. Speaking about Tramiel's Japanese invasion prediction...I believe he was absolutely right he just got the wrong industry. The Japanese were not able to take over the computer business but they sure took gaming over and held it for a very long time...1985-2004'ish.
Yep, very true!
WIlliam Shatner was a weird and surprising choice that made no sense at the time who already knew some computer history. Amusing, but he's not what sold the VIC. What sold the VIc was a real keyboard you could pound out programs on(not joking, most computers at the time had terrible keyboards)... color wow!).. graphics symbols on the keys (wow!).. and the fact it could be connected up to a regular color TV and was under $400.
For $400 you could get your hands on a computer outside the glass mainframe into your own private bedroom where you could do sexy programming things with it all to your hearts content.
The keyboard.. the color.. the graphics characters.. the TV as monitor.. and Bill Gates full screen Basic editor (killer feature)... made you hand over your money so fast and run away like a bandit :) That full screen editor sealed the deal and allayed any final reservations you had. WilliamShatner was really kind of a irrelevant even if you were a geek and had watched all the Star Trek shows.
What we found was it was hort on memory, which could easily be solved with a memory expander cartridge, but those were expensive and you had already blown all your money just for the computer. A tape to save your programs was more important. By the time you had more money the C-64 was out and after that the next big huge purchase was the holy grail... a 5.25 floppy drive for "infinite storage" lol.
The VIc was a killer bomb of a product when you first came across it in a magazine ad as I did. Compared to Sinclairs and Altairs and $$$ TRS's and Apples. It just blew everything away. Like, destroyed them. Because it got the key things... right. It's laughable now to think you'd base 33% of your buying decision for a home computer on the quality of the keyboard, but that was the reality then. The Commodore keyboard wouldn't be eclipsed until the gold standard IBM Model M came out which is a cult classic today and what I'm typing on now as a holy grail rare artifact.
The PET was Not clearly aimed at the business market.
1. The PET included both home ("new") and B)usiness models. (See the 1979 model 2001-32B, for example)
2. The PET was referred to by the press as a "Home Computer" (see Popular Science, 1977 review of the 2001)
3. The PET included playing card symbols in the font for games. (see a PET home model keyboard)
4. Chuck Peddle was quoted as believing, e.g. house wives were a target market (From one of Bagnals books I think)
5. Many early home computers were monochrome (only Apple had color in 1977). All PETS from 1979 onward had sound. The specs may have not have been ideal for gaming, but gaming isn't the only reason people bought home computers, and say nothing about the target market.
6. Most importantly: The PET was priced for home users and sold through consumer electronics shops and reviewed in consumer magazines and print. If it had been B2B, sales would have been through cold calls and trade rags.
A computer can still be a home computer and be aimed at business users!
I suspect that I'm not. I have a PC in my office at home, it's only ever used for work, it's never been used outside of my home. Business doesn't necessarily mean in an office somewhere purchased by a company., lots of people work from home and have done for a long time. My dad owned his own company back in the 80s and worked from home.
That said I see what you call "home productivity" as an off-shoot of that anyway, the computer is being used for serious tasks, not for gaming. Computers like the PET and PC were created to serve both those markets as they are essentially using the computer for the same tasks - word processing, spreadsheets, databases etc.
I very much enjoyed this thank you for putting this together. However, there is one point I must query, you state that there was a 64k expansion cartridge. It would not be possible to have 64k RAM on the VIC20 because there are two built in 8k ROMs which cannot be turned off.
Well, I found plenty of references to them online, which detailed the special bank switching used in them, but happy to be proved wrong.
@@TheLairdsLair I think you would have had to open the case on the VIC and pull out the ROM chips. I can't find any details but that's the only way I can see you could get 64k of RAM accessible.
My vic20 now houses a 4 gig pi 4b
It has been many, many years since I put my fingers on a friend's VIC 20, but I remember not being that impressed. Ohh, it had sound and colours, and games, but at that time I had already been exposed to the PET 2001 and had been quite good at programming and the poor, fussy text resolution of the VIC 20 when connected to a TV was a big turn-off for me. Some years later I bought a Acorn Atom which did 32x16 in text mode on my little black and white TV.
MOS = 'moss'
Video interactive computer
The VIC20 sucked,i bought one.
Jesus , that looks poor compared to the zx spectrum, awful computer and I’m a commodore guy , c16 plus 4 ,c64 and all amigas till the a1200 , I had a CDTV as well
the ZX spectrum was released two years later than the Vic so of course, you would expect it to be better
JetPac is available on both platforms. Worth comparing…
@@adrianfox9431 That, and at least the VIC-20 had a half-decent, full-stroke keyboard, while the ZX Spectrum and the far more expensive Atari 400 did not.
@@rbrtck And a joystick port (sadly just the one), that was compatible with the Atari standard. And access to disk drives, a reliable tape drive, and more sensible printers than Sinclair's effort.