Vic-20 made in Japan

[vicassembly]

I have come upon a Vic-20 made in japan. It has an odd, thin box that I have never seen before. It has the older PET style keyboard.

Does anyone own one, know of any history of the serial numbers? It has a 6 digit serial number.

It says vic-20 and not vc20 or anything like that. Is this more collectible?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[rmelick]

I have come upon a Vic-20 made in japan. It has an odd, thin box that I have never seen before. It has the older PET style keyboard.

Does anyone own one, know of any history of the serial numbers? It has a 6 digit serial number.

It says vic-20 and not vc20 or anything like that. Is this more collectible?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Nice find! I have one as well. I found it on Etsy of all places. I took a chance because the owner didn't have the original power supply... he was including a power cable that would have provided 120V AC directly, if used. He was selling it as tested / working, so I wondered how he new that!?! Anyway, it arrived and actually does work (using a proper power supply). It is definitely more collectable, and would probably fetch some big bucks if you found the right buyer -- especially if you bundled it with some other rare stuff like a 1540 disk drive, expansion chassis, etc. Serial numbers remain a mystery.

[Jeff-20]

pics please!

[rmelick]

pics please!

I have the original PET style keyboard, but have swapped it out with a newer one. The reason is because the numeric keypad is hard wired to the keyboard controller pins using the CK/A card below, and the Japanese VICs are simply not tall enough to fit everything inside without warping the case when closed. In fact, the height is so short that I had to cut off a six inch section of the plastic keyboard support rail on the top-left underside of the keyboard shown (near the 1, 2, 3... keys) to get the case to close naturally. I didn't want to hack pieces off of a PET-style keyboard.

[rmelick]

pics please!

http://r.ebay.com/cCTXtt

Looks like there is one up on eBay now, so it will be interesting to see how it does. Interesting note on the cases... the one on eBay has three sets of vents above the power supply and a little set to the right of the power light, as well as vents along the bottom-front of the case. My case only has two sets of vents above the power supply and lacks the remaining ones mentioned. It doesn't overheat, but I remember reading Commodore was really struggling to find ways to keep them cool. Early ones caught fire!?!

[Clockmeister]

I found one of those in Australia, all wrapped up in it's perfect condition box and looked unused and new.

It didn't work however and it had a non-C= power supply still wrapped in plastic and with the cables still factory tied. I ended up giving it away in a bulk sale of stuff about a decade ago as a deal sweetener.

I haven't seen one like it in the flesh since.

[Wilson]

Huh. I have a made in Japan Vic-20 as well - same box. Bought it for like $10 on ebay a couple years ago. It doesn't work, but I just planned to use it as a case for a spare motherboard I have...Actually, that's still the plan.