Why are Vic Carts so Big?

[MicroPet]

^
That's a good point actually. I suppose Commodore was known for saving costs in all shapes and forms - connections being one of the cost saving areas...

[eslapion]

Except for a few "Commodore specific" components, the majority of the parts found in the VIC-20 are still being made and are available.

The most obvious unavailable parts are:
- the keyboard
- the 6560/6561 VIC chip
- the circuit board (could still get reproduced by a PCB fab)
- the plastic case (could also be reproduced by a plastic moulding company)

For the rest, even the original rubber feet are still available.

The 6502 and 6522 are still available from the Western Design Center. Memory chips may be a tough find but they are available. All the logic chips are still made and sold by TI and other manufacturers.

Perhaps it would be possible to create a new design for the VIC-20 that includes the VFLI mod and a single 32k RAM chip instead of a collection of 1k x 4 or 2k x 8 SRAM chips. Then pretty much only the VIC chip would have to be taken from an old original VIC onto the new board.

[Witzo]

Except for a few "Commodore specific" components, the majority of the parts found in the VIC-20 are still being made and are available.

The most obvious unavailable parts are:
- the keyboard
- the 6560/6561 VIC chip
- the circuit board (could still get reproduced by a PCB fab)
- the plastic case (could also be reproduced by a plastic moulding company)

For the rest, even the original rubber feet are still available.

The 6502 and 6522 are still available from the Western Design Center. Memory chips may be a tough find but they are available. All the logic chips are still made and sold by TI and other manufacturers.

Perhaps it would be possible to create a new design for the VIC-20 that includes the VFLI mod and a single 32k RAM chip instead of a collection of 1k x 4 or 2k x 8 SRAM chips. Then pretty much only the VIC chip would have to be taken from an old original VIC onto the new board.

I would love to have a new VIC with more speed and RAM but that runs all the same code and has all the same video, sound etc..

Aside, my VIC arrived today! Now for soldering together those power supply wires as Lee explained on his site. Gonna be a bit of a search and challenge, I haven't used a soldering iron in years.

[MicroPet]

^

Good luck! Share some pics of the process.

[Mike]

Perhaps it would be possible to create a new design for the VIC-20 that includes the VFLI mod and a single 32K RAM chip [...]

I would love to have a new VIC with more speed and RAM but that runs all the same code and has all the same video, sound etc.

Changing the speed of the CPU would introduce much more incompatibilities than my VFLI mod.

I can easily come up with a comprehensive list of programs which require cycle exact execution of code and would break, if the synchronisation between VIC <-> CPU <-> VIA timers couldn't anymore be relied upon.

Of course, any hardware difference gives an opportunity for programs to hiccup - but that already applies to the possible differences in available RAM. From the viewpoint of most programs, the VFLI mod 'just' appears as a permanent +3K RAM expansion, which can be deactivated per software (read: made inaccessible for BASIC), should a program demand to be run with a BASIC start at $1001 (and BASIC memory ending at $1DFF). There's also the colour RAM bank register which is realised with the lower 4 bits of VIA #1 port B, but that's only relevant for programs which would want to use the user port for other things, like RS232 - but heck, it's a *user* port.

I didn't even include a switch to disable the VFLI mod hardware-wise on my VIC-20, so that should tell you something.

[Muzz73]

As compared to the TI99 4/a, the cartridges are about the same size as the VIC's, right?

I know that when I put them next to the ones for my 8-bit Atari, the VIC's cartridges are real honkers!

[MadCommodore]

Well if the cartridge port was the same size as Atari there would be a big blank plastic space on the back