Is Vic-20 = THE least powerful computer in history?

[English Invader]

Frankly, I'm not even thrilled with the ZX81's sequel, the much-adored-in-Britain-but-who-the-hell-knows-why ZX Spectrum. The machine is an improvement, yes, but is quite laughable next to other computers of its generation, outpaced by even the VIC-20 in some respects. The VIC-20 has a built in joystick port... the Spectrum makes you buy that separately. The VIC-20 is capable of rudimentary melodies... the Spectrum had to settle for clicks and buzzes in its first couple of models. The VIC-20 can put two colors together... what's the Spectrum's excuse? Clive must have been giving these things away with combo meals at Wimpy Burger for them to have the market penetration they did.

I've come to believe that every system has a story to tell and a voice to be heard and it's our job as gamers/collectors/hobbyists to find those voices and hear those stories. If you walk away from a system and think "what a piece of rubbish", you haven't been approaching it in the right way.

To get what the Spectrum has to offer you need to think about what the C64 doesn't offer. The Spectrum is the champion of the small software house and the bedroom coder and nothing illustrates that more than Manic Miner. The C64 version has better sound, graphics and looks altogether more professional, but that professionalism spoils the game because it's at the expense of the raw vitality that made MM stand out.

[beamrider]

To get what the Spectrum has to offer you need to think about what the C64 doesn't offer. The Spectrum is the champion of the small software house and the bedroom coder and nothing illustrates that more than Manic Miner. The C64 version has better sound, graphics and looks altogether more professional, but that professionalism spoils the game because it's at the expense of the raw vitality that made MM stand out.

I would say the same thing about Grid-Runner on the Vic-20 - never bettered on any platform.

[Boray]

Yeah, I'll bet the VIC-20 is sounding pretty damned good by now.

I think you missed my point. People around my age (40) generally started on a C64, C128 or Amiga. They know there was some competition (Atari probably) and that the C64 was preceded by the Vic-20 which they really did look down on at the time. I was thinking the Vic-20 probably is the model people can remember as an early home computer. I think the number of people who even knows the model name ZX81 is really just a tiny tiny fraction compared to how many who has some relation to the Vic-20.

[beamrider]

If you vote no, then please name the computer you think most people regard as the least powerful.

Any of the below
ZX80
ZX81
Acorn Atom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn_Atom


..and personally I'd take a 16K Vic over the spectrum

[ArugulaZ]

Yeah, I'll bet the VIC-20 is sounding pretty damned good by now.

I think you missed my point. People around my age (40) generally started on a C64, C128 or Amiga. They know there was some competition (Atari probably) and that the C64 was preceded by the Vic-20 which they really did look down on at the time. I was thinking the Vic-20 probably is the model people can remember as an early home computer. I think the number of people who even knows the model name ZX81 is really just a tiny tiny fraction compared to how many who has some relation to the Vic-20.

Oh, I remember the ZX81. I bought one at a garage sale twenty-odd years ago... if it tells you anything, it has an instruction manual with the following advice:

"You shouldn't be afraid of your computer. You are smarter than it is. So is your parakeet, for that matter." (and the spider in the corner, and the amoeba that gave you diarrhea in Mexico, and that little bit of lint trapped in your navel...)

You're shaping the conversation to try to get the answer you want from responders, which is a habit of the posters at AtariAge that drives me C-R-A-Z-Y. Look, everyone has different experiences with early home computers. Some people actually might think the VIC-20 is the wimpiest piece of crap they've ever used. Others may not have owned a VIC-20 and could have that opinion of the TI 99/4A (pretty lousy as a game system, honestly) or the Apple IIe (not really well suited to the task either) or a Tandy pocket computer (hoo boy) or some lame thing they picked up at a thrift store that nobody else remembers.

Many people don't remember the VIC-20 at all, dismissing it as landfill detritus with no cultural significance. I was talking to some twenty-something friends last night; they not only had no memories of the system at all but reacted to its existence as though it were some past century relic. They got as enthused about it as I would have a Howdy Doody doll. Their idea of an old, wimpy computer was the Gateway their parents bought them as children in the 1990s.

My point is, home computers are as diverse as the people who use them, and everyone has had a different personal experience. You can't set the VIC-20 as the arbitrary standard for crappy computers, because there are worse out there, and people have used them. Even those who haven't may not have used a VIC-20 either.

[ral-clan]

I agree....to this day when I think of "weakest computer" the Timex Sinclair 1000 (I think that was the ZX81 in Europe) pops immediately into mind. Doesn't mean I wouldn't like to play around with one though! I've seen some really neat demos and stuff done with them nowadays.

[Boray]

I wonder if the result would have been the same on a non-vic-20 forum

[Kweepa]

Growing up in the UK, I'd have to agree that for my generation, the ZX81 is the machine people remember.

[akator]

I wonder if the result would have been the same on a non-vic-20 forum

Assuming you asked the question in a diverse forum of people with actual knowledge and/or experience, you would probably still get the same answer: the ZX-81 was the weakest mainstream computer of its time. It didn't even have a way to easily attach a peripheral disk drive.

Some might reply that the original TRS-80 or one of its B&W successors was weak because those machines didn't have standardized fancy hi-res graphics... however they were still supercomputers compared to the ZX-81, with much more sophisticated hardware and expansion options.

So... the only way people would respond that the VIC-20 was the least powerful computer in history is if those people were misformed and literally ignorant of provable, hard, factual information

[edit] I didn't mean "ignorant" as an insult but as it's defined form, meaning misinformed and/or without having enough information to make an informed decision or opinion.[/edit]

[English Invader]

Assuming you asked the question in a diverse forum of people with actual knowledge and/or experience, you would probably still get the same answer: the ZX-81 was the weakest mainstream computer of its time...

Boray isn't talking about people with knowledge or experience, he's talking about Joe Public but even then there are varying levels of knowledge about computers.

There are people like my father who bought a VIC-20 in the early 80s yet have no inclination to learn how to use a modern PC and access the internet. He always felt the VIC was an expensive money trap that took forever to load anything and wished he bought a ZX-81.

The truth is there were so many different micros between the late 70s and the mid 90s that people will have been exposed to all different kinds of machines with no knowledge beyond their own experience which could be anything from skilled hobbyist to "My son had one of those things... can't remember what it was called!".

[Boray]

So... the only way people would respond that the VIC-20 was the least powerful computer in history is if those people were misformed and literally ignorant of provable, hard, factual information

Yes of course. That is my point. The Vic-20 is famous enough to be remembered as an early computer that you upgraded from. I didn't know anyone with an ZX-81. It's so unknown to me that I even had to go back and look in the thread for the model number. Maybe it's because of where I live and my age... I guess there are some computers very known in Sweden that you never have seen. The ABC-80 for example? It's maybe even more known than the Vic-20 in Sweden.

[English Invader]

The ABC range was popular enough to make it onto Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_80

[English Invader]

I posted this question in some non-retro gaming/vintage computer forums and someone came up with this fella:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_FDD3000

[English Invader]

I posted least powerful computer threads in the following forums:

- a forum for people with Asperger's Syndrome
- a forum that's dedicated to a popular Australian soap opera (Home and Away)
- a forum that's dedicated to my favourite football team (Spurs)

The Spurs thread is the one that's been the most productive so far. Plenty of people have posted experiences with the Spectrum (one of them even made games for it back in the day), Amstrad and C64 and there's another guy who had a self-assembly job from the late 70s and had to make his own operating system. And one person suggested this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

The AS thread has only had 3 replies so far. One was for the Timex 3000, the second suggested an abacus and the third came up with a programmable C= calculator and a ZX-81.

No replies so far in the Home and Away thread.

[orion70]

I agree with the guys who suggested that no real answer can be given - that's why I arbitrarily modified the question to: In your opinion, is Vic-20 = THE least powerful 6502-based computer in history? In that case, the answer is: no, it's the KIM-1 (luckily enough, there was a single-board 6502 micro before the VIC).

But I took the easiest way