Happy 40, Vic!

[LoadError]

In this year 2020 the VIC-20 will turn 40 years old.
Happy birthday friend(ly computer)!
Let's keep it going for the next 40 years

[joshuadenmark]

Someone must put together a Vic-40

Happy birthday

[English Invader]

It's beaten me to that milestone. I turn 39 in August so I've still got the best part of a couple of years to go. To think I was only 27 when I joined this forum.

[orion70]

@English Invader, go back to the kindergarten, you rookie

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR VIC! Forty years of passion, friendliness, fun, and increasing knowledge... thank you for being on my desk since 1982 . Too bad nobody seems to be aware of this anniversary in the mainstream media (yet).

[eslapion]

I thought the VIC-1001 appeared in Japan in 1980 and the VIC-20 showed up in North America in 1981 ?

Did I get this wrong ?

[English Invader]

I thought the VIC-1001 appeared in Japan in 1980 and the VIC-20 showed up in North America in 1981 ?

Did I get this wrong ?

No, but the VIC-1001 is just what they called the VIC-20 in Japan. In principle, it's no different from the VC-20 in Germany (name change to avoid obscenity in the German language). All three are the same machine so, to cut a long story short, I think it's safe to say that the VIC was released in 1980.

[joshuadenmark]

No matter what,we should celebrate our beloved Vic 20 every year!

[orion70]

Yep, 2022 will be forty years of VIC in Italy (and in my room )

[highinfidelity]

My oh my, 40 years, this means that I can proudly say that I've been an early adopter and a pioneer in information technology!

I have to admit that my VIC unit hasn't aged particularly well, but it's still there and hopingly it will stay with me for my whole lifetime!

[cbmeeks]

Does anyone actually know what day the VIC was released? I like to mark these days on my calendar (seriously).

[DrVeryEvil]

I bought my first VIC 20 in 1983 and I still have it. It's undergoing a refurb.

[lance.ewing]

Does anyone actually know what day the VIC was released? I like to mark these days on my calendar (seriously).

I couldn't find the exact date in 1980 that the VIC-1001 was released, but all the sources I've found that mention the Japan release say that it was in September 1980, at a department store called Seibu in downtown Toyko.

https://www.retrogamer.net/profiles/hardware/vic-20/

"The VIC-1001 debuted at the Seibu Department store in Japan in September 1980, taking over 100 orders by the end of the month and officially launching in October."

The Bagnall book mentions specifically "late September 1980".

It sounds like it was part of some computer show at the store at that time, a which Commodore had a booth. Do the Japanese have old magazine and newspapers digitised online? I wonder if we could find an advert for this particular computer show at Seibu. It sounds like something that would be advertised. We'd need someone that could read Japanese as well.

[Mayhem]

That bit above was written by myself for RG. I suspect it probably came from Mike Tomczyk.

[lance.ewing]

The Brian Bagnall book mentions it as well, as follows:

In late September 1980, the VIC-1001 debuted in the Seibu Department Store in downtown Tokyo. Seibu was the Japanese equivalent of Bloomingdales and sold high-end products on several large floors. At the time, the store hosted a computer show exhibiting products from approximately one hundred companies.

Tony Tokai and Michael Tomczyk manned the small Commodore booth in the store.

....

That evening, after the close of the show, Tokai called Tramiel long-distance to report the results of the debut. Through the static filled phone line, Tramiel could barely hear Tokai’s soft voice, but he managed to hear orders of over 1,000 computers on the first day. This was a success, considering there were probably only a few hundred thousand personal computers worldwide. Tramiel slept well, knowing his low-cost computer might drive back the Japanese competition.

[lance.ewing]

Someone must put together a Vic-40

I guess if someone were to do this, we're most likely thinking of a couple of things:

* 40 columns of text
* 40K RAM as standard

For the first, it implies using the 6562/3 VIC chip, which I think means double the clock rate for everything. And since 40 is double 20, it fits the theme quite well for it to be twice as fast.

For the second, I suspect it would require a rearrangement of the memory map, and probably some circuitry that detects a cartridge where any address decoding on the cartridge would take precedence over the base "on board" RAM.

All of this also implies some rewriting of the ROM code.

Sounds like a fun emulation project