Is The Vic Your Favourite 8-bit?

[carlsson]

Someone just recently implemented speech synthesis on the VIC-20, or did I dream? Of course you have PWP's increasingly improving speech, but I think someone else implemented a different engine. I've read that Groepaz re-sourced SAM so perhaps it could be used.

[Ghislain]

I confess that I play around on my Commodore 64 more than I do on the VIC-20. That being said, the VIC-20 is my favorite platform to write games for. I really like the 22x23 screen size and it makes for a nice playfield for custom chars.

[PaulQ]

One thing I always wanted for the Vic 20 was an 80 column display card. When I think about it, it's probably the only "Toy" computer priced even below some game consoles that could be turned into a full fledged professional computer system, mostly thanks to its comparably exceptional keyboard.

[RobertBe]

One thing I always wanted for the Vic 20 was an 80 column display card.

Now if only I could dig out where I put my Data-20 80-column cart...

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

[gklinger]

One thing I always wanted for the Vic 20 was an 80 column display card.

Now if only I could dig out where I put my Data-20 80-column cart...

Going to give it to him?

[Barney]

The VIC-20 is defininitely the best 8 bit computer ever made. Many people look at the Commodore 64 as a step up...well I look at it as a step down. The Vic is, and always will be the best.

Barney

[Pedro Lambrini]

^
Can I ask why you think the 64 is a step down? Is it an emotional thing or do you have a more prosaic reason? Just curious.

[Barney]

Ok Pedro Lambrini, you broke me. It's time to come clean. Back in the day as the Vic started going obsolete, all my friends upgraded to the Commodore 64. They were cutting edge and I was still using the outdated, laughable VIC-20. They harassed me, called me names and made me feel like a piece of smelly crap for not upgrading like the rest of them. At school, people would say "Hey man, I just got a Commodore 64, what do you have?". I just couldn't get myself to admit that I was still using a VIC-20.
Time went on and many of my friends upgraded to the Amiga and guess what? You guessed it, I was still using the VIC-20. That stinking white, bread box, 3k piece of crap.
Well, in time I did upgrade. I upgraded to the Commodore 128, the Amiga 1000 and even a Pentium and an Athlon. Then one day I sat there looking at all my computer systems that I accumulated over the years and I realized: none of these made me as happy as my VIC-20. I missed my "3583 bytes free" machine with the big blocky cartridges and slow tape deck.
Well, from then on, It was all uphill from there. I went crazy with my collecting. I have quite a bit of VIC stuff and almost every cartridge ever made.
I now love my VIC. It makes me HAPPY.

Barney

[carlsson]

Yes, it makes sense that the C64 is a computer for bullies and spoiled brats.

[Boray]

I used the Vic-20 for a year when all my friends had 64s... It's a bit sad that I didn't know that my Vic-20 actually was faster than their machines... When I eventually got a c64, I started to wonder why my home made games became so much worse when making basic games on the c64... I didn't realize it until long after; the faster basic, the smaller screen and the fewer pokes.

A funny thing with my basic games from that time (1987) is that I didn't know much about making custom characters and the memory. I actually programmed with a 16K ram but used the same memory space for custom characters as you do with no memory expansion, which means that I got less memory with a memory expansion than without! Should mean that I only had about 3000 bytes to work with...

[rhurst]

Yes, it makes sense that the C64 is a computer for bullies and spoiled brats.

Using BASIC, a stock VIC and/or with the 3K (or Super Expander with 3K) is about as optimal as it is going to get for 2.0. BASIC 2.0 with 8k expansion or more has diminishing returns, in particular the VIC & C64 garbage collector is absolute junk at >8k. A stock VIC was friendlier than C64 because it was simpler and made for home programming -- making it more useful out-of-the-box without access to any add-ons.

As a programmer back then, I was contracted to write a personal finance / checkwriter program for C64 (was provided with a whole setup costing $1000 with floppy and printer), done in BASIC (but with some ML to make up for BASIC deficiencies). The result proved it was better than the contractor's DIGITAL Rainbow version in terms of color, speed, and friendliness. IMO, C64 with BASIC alone would not have cut it -- that's why C64 had BASIC, C, Forth, etc. compilers, but it was a great platform for arcade games in machine language. And what was the % of consumers that were going to learn ML? So C64 was "friendly" for having a larger, improved software library over VIC.

BASIC became useful again with 3.5 and 7.0 releases, targeting the advantages of larger address space and I/O (DOS, REL, PLAY, and all the GRAPHIC commands). On the C128 in FAST 80-column mode, its BASIC allowed you to write a decent BBS/telecommunications program using 1200 baud. And later, you could compile the same BASIC code and keep up with 2400 baud.

[eslapion]

One thing I always wanted for the Vic 20 was an 80 column display card.

Now if only I could dig out where I put my Data-20 80-column cart...

Going to give it to him?

The darn Protecto 80 has some sort of copy protection. Not so with the Data-20.

If I could lay my hands on one of these, I could make a couple of clones.

The 6845 display chip can still be found here and there so copies would probably not be so expensive.

[PaulQ]

Going to give it to him?

Wow, Golan; you've been snubbed by Mr. Bernardo. I don't think he likes the cut of your jib.

The darn Protecto 80 has some sort of copy protection. Not so with the Data-20.

If I could lay my hands on one of these, I could make a couple of clones.

That would be really cool. Count me in as a customer!

[Pedro Lambrini]

If Theres any chance of an 80 column card I'd definitely be in for one. And I'd hassle Orion to make versions of his text games for it!!

[PaulQ]

If Theres any chance of an 80 column card I'd definitely be in for one. And I'd hassle Orion to make versions of his text games for it!!

I think it'd be cool if it also came with 32k expansion in the same cart. It would be like an entirely new Commodore computer to me.