Best VIC 20 magazines

Post by **Jeff-20** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:30 pm

I just got all 1984 issues of RUN magazine including the JAN premier issue. I was a little disappointed. I know the magazine came a little late, but the magazine really didn't include enough for the VIC.

COMPUTE seemed to have much better offerings for the VIC as far as ADs and Programs. I was impressed by some of the 1985 issues of RUN I found; I thought the 84 issues would surely be VIC-intensive.

What magazine series did you find the most interesting for the VIC?

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:16 am

I have ONE number of Swedish "VIC Rapport" from 1983. It's amazing how much great info is included in this issue. Descriptions of almost all games and carts, the complete C64 memory map etc... I have looked in this magazine for hundreds of times...

/Anders

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 5:51 am

I have more issues (5-6) of that one. It is fairly OK and a pioneer in brand specific magazines, at least for the Swedish market. There was an interesting story about VIC Rapport:

It was a full-sized, glossy magazine from the beginning, but made by and for enthusiasts in VIC clubs. The name of the paper was VIC News. After a few issues, it had established itself and someone suggested to change the name into Swedish: VIC Nytt. However, this name was already occupied by some other magazine (not computer related), so they had to change the name once again.

The whole collection of VIC Rapport should consist of three issues of VIC News, one issue of VIC Nytt and the following ones VIC Rapport until it disappeared, maybe early 1986. (which was the year when Datormagazin arrived, but they for obvious reasons never mentioned the VIC-20 other than as a joke).

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 7:22 am

I have never seen Vic20 magazine.. It would be really intresting..

It was year 1984 when finnish homecomputer magazine MikroBitti started.. But it was same time when C64 time was starting..

I never seen reviews of games like Jupiter Lander, Gorf, Sargon II Chess.. or tape software..

It would be really cool see vic20 magazine..

So we need.. Flie area here.. and someone who has Vic20 magazines and scanner..

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 8:16 am

I could scan something, if you read svenska (too bored to make OCR and translations unless it is some specific subject). Remember COMPUTE! and the Gazette, of which the latter was fully C= oriented. Somehow, the really big market for brand specific magazines seemed to begin in the latter half of the 80ties - maybe as a reaction on that the market had settled into a few successful brands and the competition from consoles.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 9:42 am

COMPUTE was great. I spent hours photocopying pages from it. I still look at those photocopies today.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:38 am

There is a picture of my brother in one issue of VIC Rapport! When he won the Vic1020 in a programming contest. Maybe you have this issue, Anders?

/Anders

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:44 am

When I get home, I can give a list of all VIC-20 related magazines I own (not counting the photo-copied pages from various magazines, it would be too much work).

Btw, the translated manuals from Super Expander and Programmers' Aid (see iDOC=) were scanned and OCR:ed from issues included in VIC News. I'm not sure how they got permission to do that, but maybe the translations were finished after Handic/Datatronic and resellers had begun selling the cartridges. Since ROM images were an almost unknown concept back then, it probably was safe to print a copy of the manual in a magazine.

These days, it is the printed docs that makes a difference between original and copy...

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 4:52 am

carlsson wrote: Since ROM images were an almost unknown concept back then,

What? You got to be joking? They were copied just as much as other games. We had lots of plugin games on tape... Or why would they else start to put in copy protection in the carts???

/Anders

Post by **Jeff-20** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 6:44 am

I'm sure it was known but not popular/common (as today).

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 8:01 am

Yeah, I have Omega Race (!) on tape, but 1. it fails to load properly and 2. it still requires the block 5 expansion RAM which was not totally common back then (unless you knew how to modify an 8K cartridge).

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 3:47 pm

On the instructions that came with the 8k cartridge, there are clear instructions of how to use the switches inside...

/Anders

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Fri Jul 30, 2004 3:49 pm

Btw, I also have Vic News årgång 1 nr 1 and that Super Expander manual

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 3:36 am

carlsson wrote:Yeah, I have Omega Race (!) on tape

I have all my brother's 19 vic20 tapes from 1983. And they are
occupied with cartridge files to about 50%. And he didn't make
any of them himself, they were just flowing around among the vic
users. Apart from the ram check copy protection, the companies
also had other tricks to prevent piracy. They split up 8k
programs into two 4k parts and put one in block 5 and one in
block 3. This way you needed a modified 16k ram cartridge instead
of a STANDARD 8k ram cartridge to play them... Why would they go
through the trouble of making these copy protection things if cart
images were unheard of???

/Anders

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 2:13 pm

Hmm.. yes, there seems to have been a few (Funet/Zimmers counts to seven, mostly Creative Software and UMI) who split the file over two areas. My brother's friend (him with the damaged Road Race cart) also used to have some tapes full of ROM images, but since we never owned a memory expansion to load them, it never copied to our home.

Speaking of which, I deeply regret we didn't copy everything that came our way and kept it until today. Apart from all the games we included when we sold the first VIC-20, there were plenty of memory expanded programs, mainly text adventures, which we never copied because they were too large or not interesting. When my brother owned the VIC, he had no memory expansion at all, and later I acquired 12K as mentioned before. If he had the 32K I have today, chances are that a lot more software had been preserved. Maybe even there was a Mount Drash copy floating around somewhere?