Tips

[htimreimer]

i'm new to the vic 20 and to programming, i like to know if you guys have any tips for a noob

[Mike]

If you really want to experience, what programming on and for the VIC-20 is all about, you need:

- a real VIC-20 with power adapter and RF modulator [1],
- preferably with a 1531 datasette [2], and
- a copy of the VIC-20 User's Manual.

These three points form the common set of knowledge you need to know about first. Later on, you can take any of the books about the VIC-20 at DLH's Commodore Archive (a.k.a. Bombjack). If you have a specific question about how to program something on the VIC-20, don't hesitate to ask here. The search function of this forum is also quite usable now.

For the handling of emulators, cross-developing tools and data-transfer between VIC-20 and PC, that is what the section 'Emulators and Cross-Developing' is about.

Greetings,

Michael

[1] because you don't want to mess around with emulators at this stage
[2] so you can save and load your own programs on tape

[FD22]

I'd contest the whole 'hardware vs. emulation' point.

VICE (specifically XVIC) is complete and stable enough in all but a very few edge-cases to code for and have a good expectation of your product running on a physical VIC. Plus it's cheap (i.e. free) and supports a whole bunch of additional modes and devices that you'd have to spend a lot of time and money trying to acquire in realspace.

If you want the visceral experience of coding on a VIC-20, then yeah, hardware. If what you actually want is to be able to write code for a VIC-20, VICE is more than good enough, and the barrier to entry (how much effort it takes to get it working) is zero.

[Boray]

I think Mike's point probably is that with that setup, you can follow the user manual examples to 100% and that is a good point. Today, you are better off without a RF modulator and a with a diskdrive (or SD card reader) but then the examples would not work.

[htimreimer]

thanks for the tips

[joshuadenmark]

You can download all the book in just one click here:
http://www.commodorecomputers.dk/

[Witzo]

If you really want to experience, what programming on and for the VIC-20 is all about, you need:

- a real VIC-20 with power adapter and RF modulator [1],
- preferably with a 1531 datasette [2], and
- a copy of the VIC-20 User's Manual.

Yes, this is how I started computing life at age 12. Oh the memories...