Graf cart - got to go to France to get it

ianoid · Post by **ianoid** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:30 pm

Just trolling the international eBays since the dollar is a bit stronger, saw this -
http://cgi.ebay.fr/2-ORDINATEUR-COMMOD ... 240%3A1318

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:46 am

Sends to France métropolitaine only.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:14 pm

If you want a VIC Graf cartridge, I know someone who has one to sell. Dunno how much a loose cart is worth though.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 7:41 pm

Wow....those VIC-GRAF cartridges are extremely rare in North America (I've never even seen one up close). Can anyone provide good scans of the box art, or has there ever been a ROM dump?

Is this a Handic product? What product number?

And last of all....what in the heck does VIC-GRAF do? Is it a graph plotting application?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 3:52 am

There seem to be two different "VIC Graf", one from Commodore and one made in Sweden by Datatronic.

Searching this forum and googling around:

Carlsson wrote:Peter Karlsson owns VIC Graf

(who's that guy? Which version does he have?).

Italian ad with a Commodore cartridge named "VIC Graf":
http://www.1000bit.net/lista/dati/commo ... c20_ad.jpg
- also cited in this thread

Announcement of the VIC-Graf cart by Commodore in Compute! isse 34 / march 1983.

Swedish site citing the Datatronic cart, with a picture:
http://www.softwolves.pp.se/cbm/minaburkar/vic.en.html

Also, Bo Zimmermann seems to have a copy of one version (which one?), as per Mayhem in this post.

Now, I lost track of everything. Are the two versions similar, or the same with different labels? Is there a ROM dump and/or executable prg for any of those two versions? Is there any scanned manual somewhere?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 7:34 am

They are probably the same. Commodore did release a few Handic titles on their own label for Vic20 and C64.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 12:44 pm

Handic = Datatronic?
Handic = Datatronic = Commodore?

Anyone has the ROM(s) and/or the manual? Mayhem?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 4:10 pm

Don't have Graf sadly... I've got Stat and Forth myself. What is interesting is that in all the Handic carts I have for the Vic20, only these two were manufactured by Datatronic (as per label). The games say made by Handic.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 7:35 pm

I thought I posted this before, but I guess my message was lost:

does anyone know the HANDIC/DATATRONIC product numbers for these cartridges? The Denial Wiki lists them in the Cartridges article, but the product numbers are missing.

mostlyharmless · Post by **mostlyharmless** » Sun Nov 02, 2008 10:20 pm

I have a swedish manual for VIC Graf that could be scanned if there is interest.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 1:33 am

Mayhem wrote:Don't have Graf sadly...

OK, I found the ROM here, but also in Zimmer. I thought it wasn't available in the Internet; it's only incorrectly named Graph instead of Graf.

Mayhem wrote:I've got Stat and Forth myself. What is interesting is that in all the Handic carts I have for the Vic20, only these two were manufactured by Datatronic (as per label). The games say made by Handic.

Here the owner of a VIC Graf cart says

I also got two cartridges with it, one is a Programmer's Aid, and the other one is VIC-GRAF (shown here). The Programmer's Aid cartridge looks just the same, but says "Made in Sweden by Handic Software AB" (instead of Datatronic). Both of them have the Datatronic logo with the text "handic" beneath them on the back, though (with the d surrouning the screw).

The program definitely needs a manual.

mostlyharmless wrote:I have a swedish manual for VIC Graf that could be scanned if there is interest.

If you could translate it...

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 3:47 am

orion70 wrote:Handic = Datatronic?
Handic = Datatronic = Commodore?

Handic was a Datatronic subsidiary (or if it was the other way around, can't remember). Handic was the official distributor of Commodore products in Sweden from the late 70s until Commodore set up its own subsidiary in Sweden, in 1986 I think.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:52 am

Datatronic bought the distribution rights to Commodore in c:a 1977. I think Handic was some sort of half state owned company that Datatronic also bought to become the reseller. Handic sold com radios and other various electronic equipment.

All the Handic games/utilities were developed by Datatronic, which sold the games (A World at War, Bridge etc) under the Handic label and the utility programs (VIC Graf, Stat, Forth) under the Datatronic label.

Actually you can find some of the Commodore cartridges like Jelly Monsters in a Handic silver edition. Why they reissued it, I don't know as it is supposedly programmed by HAL in Japan...

But back to the topic, there was a person at Retro Gathering who had boxes full of random stuff, including one loose copy each of VIC Graf and Graf 64. I don't think either got sold, but maybe they are now.

Actually I now remember having seen two different editions of VIC Graf, or if it was VIC Stat. One international one in English, and one in Swedish. I may even have uploaded a dump of the localized one.

As for the model numbers, I can look those up in an old catalogue when I get home. I think I have sent those to Ward and/or Mayhem a couple of times through the years, but perhaps those details have got lost since neither of these cartridges are games. I know as much that Datatronic's VIC-FORTH was sold as VIC-202 (Jim Brain writes VIC-2012 but that may be a US model number). I think GRAF and STAT were 201 and 203, but I can't recall in which order.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:09 am

I'll also check my carts when I get home tonight. And yeah I have a few of the Handic/Commodore reissues here: Star Battle, Jelly Monsters and Sargon Chess spring to mind.

Why did Handic reissue anything perhaps? I've got a Handic C64 version of Jeff Minter's Gridrunner (originally released by HES in the US) in my collection so anything's possible; wasn't just Commodore's own.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:26 am

Perhaps the demand was so big that Commodore could not manufacture to all markets. It seems Datatronic had nice facilities for cartridge production, so while being an official distributor and very close partner with Commodore (e.g. one of very few regions where localized computers were officially sold), it kind of makes sense to reissue Commodore's own cartridges. Not sure about HES though, but perhaps they had some agrement with them as well.

I do have a small batch of circuit boards of the kind Datatronic used in their 8K VIC-20 games. Those boards, as I wrote in the Bridge thread, take 2x 2732's; possibly 2532 too although it has a different pinout. I also own one larger board that seems to have solder points for some RAM chips + two 24-pin slots. Perhaps it was used for Datatronic's release of Super Expander. However I haven't seen any Datatronic board that takes 2764 chips, as indicated by Pelle's dump of the Bridge game.