Why VIC-20 and not C64?

[darkatx]

I live in a state of Arrested Development.
The Vic-20 was my first computer after fawning over my friend's Pet that his dad would borrow from the school on weekends. I never owned a 64 went from the Vic to the C-128. Over time I realized there was a distinct difference! To me - its limitations are part of its charm. I don't see it for what it couldn't do but more for what it can.
Such an optimistic perspective for a machine I can't quite describe?

[OBSysteme]

In my homestead, the first computers we had came a bit late and so they were Ms-DOS boxes (Tandy 1000, PC clones).... so NO early 8bit computer nostalgia for me.

My initial infatuation with older machines is linked to seing and reading about the commodore 64 and trying to find one locally. One day, I finaly found some locally, rescuing a huge stash of c64-related material somebody was throwing out of their garage. In the piles of stuff was a very filthy and broken fella that was not a c64 at all!!! That was first contact with VIC for me. I managed to fix it and rescued another vic shortly after, then realising that in my area at least, they are MORE abundant than C64's ????

Odd enough, ever since I grabed the stuff, VIC got all the attention and I never really used the c64 stuff ... I have so few time for play, VIC gets it all... Its hard to explain the appeal over the 64 but part of it for me is that I dearly wanted to learn more programming and get out of the "end user" cage, it seems VIC felt more approachable than C64, and the Denial forum has a lot to do with it since this place is as friendly as the friendly computer.

I don't know if I will ever climb-up to the c64, maybe just for the SID for my musical interests...

[be236]

I wish I could play with my VIC more, but like I said last time, the 22-column screen makes it frustrating to use... I mean it barely has enough spaces to list a disk directory, or list a program or even display a menu as part of a programming... stuff gets scrolled off, etc... arg...

It's good for small and simple programs... hopefully I can find some old VIC-20 disks in my collection of C64 disks to play with someday... alas...

[William_X]

I am curious why most of you love the VIC-20 versus other computers like the C64?

As one or two others have said, the limitations actually make it an attractive challenge, and on top of that, there's a nostalgia for things that one experiences growing up.

As soon as I sell my current home and move into another house and finish my latest round of IT certs I'd love to attempt a Vic game. I look at folks like Mr Hurst and the software he's written only to have my mind boggled. I'd be thrilled to write something 1/3 as accomplished.

With the Vic, you can understand the entire system if you make the effort. With modern day computers you're at the whim of whoever wrote your framework, operating system, hardware driver, etc. The order of complexity makes a true and profound understanding of the system highly unlikely, if not downright impossible.

Somebody else here mentioned arrested development. I believe it was Steven Levy in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution that compared late 1970s to late 1980s video game programmers to the young men that wanted to write The Great American Novel. This may be an influence as well.

For some of us the challenge may be more technical and less creative (or it might be more creative technically) to do the ports we'd have liked to have seen on our little Vic. I would have loved to have seen Ladybug, Cosmic Avenger, Phoenix, and Vanguard on the Vic. Maybe one day I'll write a knockoff.

The C64 is a fine machine (I owned a C128 later on down the road then moved to an Amiga 2000HD), and if a C64 is a person's first computer I can see them viewing that machine with the same affection. The '64 came out with her hardware sprites, SID chip, and expansive memory and folks left the Vic in droves. I stuck with the Vic for a long time and was very happy.

[akator]

Unlike most who have posted so far, I did not have a VIC or C64 growing up. My schools had TRS-80s, Apple IIs, and PCs and our house had a TS1000, a few Apple IIs, and eventually Macs.

The VIC interested me for a brief time in the early 80s but that was replaced by other machines as newer, greater, faster things came along every year.

Several years ago I was playing around with some emulators and rediscovered the VIC, then this site and the many amazing things people have done with it. I bought my first VIC in 2006, and it's now one of my favorite classic computers. I've still got a lot to learn about it, though

[rmelick]

I am curious why most of you love the VIC-20 versus other computers like the C64?

After 30 years of therapy it remains a total mystery to me. The best I can figure is that the power supply circuity inside emits electro-magnetic waves fine tuned by Commodore to stimulate the pleasure centers of my brain.

Maybe the evil genius of Michael Tomczyk and Commodore's marketing department put me into some sort of hypnotic trance from which I've never awoken. It is the textbook definition of addiction and obsession.

Maybe it is a little, "rooting for the underdog," and, "The Little Engine that Could." (I also drive a Hyundai.) I just don't know.

This is a cry for help!

[RJBowman]

I think that it's my short attention span; I don't have the patience to write the BASIC code required to make the C-64 do anything impressive.

[LawrenceWoodman]

My first introduction to Commodore was with a C128, although I was later given a Vic-20, in about 1988, which didn't work. The story was that there was a misprint in a magazine that damaged the machine. I always intended to get it back up and running, but the years passed by. New machines came along and I never got around to it. I still have that Vic-20, at my parents house, and one day will I will recover it and at least see what's wrong and if I can fix it.

My more recent interest in the Vic-20 came about because I have been working on two emulators for the Jupiter ACE, the latest being CanAce. The ACE uses a reconfigurable character set in a similar way to the Vic-20 and I felt this was a clever way of giving a machine quite a lot of power and flexibility without demanding too much of the hardware. As much as I loved the Ace, it has a small following. The Vic-20 came on my radar because it too is a machine with a relatively small amount of memory as standard and a reconfigurable character set, but importantly it has a large vibrant community.

I like the Vic-20 over the C64/C128 because of the particular challenge that it presents when programming. I have enjoyed seeing some of the ingenious ways that programmers have dealt with the small display size and memory, and this has a particular appeal for me.

Reading this forum and looking at what people have been able to do has sparked my creative imagination and brought forth many ideas I now want to purse.

[orion70]

Hello Lawrence, welcome to the community .

The story was that there was a misprint in a magazine that damaged the machine.

Wasn't the 'deadly poke' a urban legend? I know there's one really damaging old PETs (their monitor in particular), but never heard of something similar for the VIC...

[LawrenceWoodman]

The story was that there was a misprint in a magazine that damaged the machine.

Wasn't the 'deadly poke' a urban legend? I know there's one really damaging old PETs (their monitor in particular), but never heard of something similar for the VIC...

To be honest, I was always sceptical and I've never been able to find any reference to it on the internet. I was given the machine by the owner's mother and it has crossed my mind that her son may have made up this story to cover up something else he had done, such as shorting out some of the pins.

I'm more curious than ever to recover it from my parents' house, but we're expecting our second child in a few weeks. We're busy getting everything ready for their arrival so it probably wouldn't be the best time for me to introduce another computer to the house.

By the time I do get it, I won't know whether it isn't working because of 30+ years of decay or because of the original problem. Oh well, a challenge for another day.

[d020]

I liked that you could trade memory for resolution. Or move the screen around. Or change the aspect ratio - like frogger 07 did. In this respect the Vic 20 is superior to the c64.

[eslapion]

Hello Lawrence, welcome to the community .

The story was that there was a misprint in a magazine that damaged the machine.

Wasn't the 'deadly poke' a urban legend? I know there's one really damaging old PETs (their monitor in particular), but never heard of something similar for the VIC...

Unless, of course, the person typed the code using a jackhammer...

[orion70]

[jeremyon1]

I bought my Vic-20 in 1984 for $88.88 at K-Mart. It was pure heaven. I bought all my cartridges used, typed in games and saved on cheap tapes, and pirated software using a dual cassette deck. What's not to love? I couldn't afford a C64 and it's expensive disc drive and more expensive games. For me, it was the Vic-20 or no computer at all and I much preferred to think that I had a real computer and not a video game machine. Now, it's better than ever! I've got the megacart, a uiec drive, and the Denial community! Nirvana! Now, I lead cub scouts and they love the Vic-20 too! They go home to play their XBox 360's and wish they had a Vic-20!

Of course, I keep dabbling in "upgrading" to the C-64. I recently bought an SX-64 and I love it, but it will never supplant my fondness for the Vic-20.

[Z0rb]

I must admit that I am pretty new to the Vic-20 crowd.

As a kid, around 1982ish it was one of the computers I often would dream of having. We had a TI 994a in our house and although I had a lot of fun with it. It was a pretty expensive machine to expand upon, the BASIC programming was not the same (no peeks or pokes), and there was no easy way to program in Assembly (which is what I ultimately wanted to learn).

Fast forward to 1987 when I got a C128. This machine truly blew my mind, and although it had many capabilities I used it more in C=64 mode. In such times I would often wonder why the Vic had nearly disappeared over night.

Finally the day came when I snagged a Vic-20 on eBay for less than 15 dollars. It was broken but I was determined to fix it or if nothing else harvest the MOS 6502 in it. Luckily the Vic only needed to be cleaned up and have a fuse changed. I fired it up and was greeted by the glorious 22 column screen.

It would seem that a lot of folks complain about this screen but I actually like the 22 columns. Sure its terrible for listing a program but if I am using a bigger TV I can sit back away from it and program. Or if I am using a little tiny LCD screen I can still see what I am typing.

I like the feel of the machine, and I must admit that I REALLY missed typing on one of the older type keyboards. There is a certain feel to them that I cannot seem to get with any newer keyboards. You can slam them keys emphatically when you get done typing a multi-command line with statements buried in a for-next loop. That last heavy key press is like my exclamation point. Its a form of expression

I also like the limited capabilities of the machine that almost scream "I CHALLENGE YOU TO MAKE ME DO SOMETHING FOR WHICH I WAS NEVER DESIGNED" The creativity fostered by the versatile and nearly complete access to every address on the machine often leaves me in a state of wonderment.

I cannot say that it is the most awesome machine, I have ever used or owned, but I certainly think that in the short time I have owned it, I have more then got my 15 dollar's worth out of it. I am indeed happy with my purchase