Is The Vic Your Favourite 8-bit?

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 1:43 pm

PaulQ wrote: The "Yard sale find" factor also made the Vic 20 my favourite 8 bit of all times (with the Atari 2600 in second place). It was so exciting to find some strange new game cartridge or cassette tape I'd never heard of; I'd always rush home eager to try it out.

It's rather like that with the Game Gear at the moment. Games appear on eBay for as little as 99p including postage. Plus GG carts were not region encoded so you can import games from North America and Japan that were unreleased in Europe and play them on your GG with no trouble.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 2:33 pm

^
I have to agree with the fact that the Game Gear is a mighty wee machine. Lots of games are super cheap - especially if you have a Master Gear! I used to have loads of stuff for it.

Still prefer the Vic though! The problem with consoles is that they are nigh on impossible to program (at least without all the paraphernalia required). The Vic has highly playable games and you can write your own...

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 3:56 pm

English Invader,
I play a game gear game (via Gameboy SP emulator) every single morning while I wake. Baku Baku. It helps stimulate my brain and wake me up after the usual night of broken sleep. I highly recommend it.

I did some research on the BBC, and it's quite impressive. Very interesting history too.

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 5:25 pm

Jeff-20 wrote:English Invader,
I play a game gear game (via Gameboy SP emulator) every single morning while I wake. Baku Baku. It helps stimulate my brain and wake me up after the usual night of broken sleep. I highly recommend it.

That is an awesome game. Amusing scenario; a royal tournament to determine a worthy zookeeper for the princess's pets. Took me a couple of goes to work out that you have to match the animals with the food they eat (monkey = bananas, rabbit = carrots etc.).

For them as wants, here is an equally awesome GG website:
www.gamegear.isgreat.org

matsondawson · Post by **matsondawson** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 6:56 pm

Sure vic-20 is great, but I think I'd rather an Apple ][

As the vic-20 I had growing up had no storage, so I couldn't save anything I'd done. And it's power supply blew after about 6 months, and no amount of aluminium foil shoved in the fuse hole would fix it. But my father used to bring an Apple ][ home from school with a disc drive and a green screen. I still remember it's gorgeous hot plastic smell and trying to rescue Princess Sabrina in Transylvania.

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Sun Jan 10, 2010 7:20 pm

Jeff-20 wrote: I did some research on the BBC, and it's quite impressive. Very interesting history too.

If you're interested, there is a great BBC4 dramatization of the Acorn/Sinclair "war" called Micro Men. It's "available" on-line

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:05 am

Sorry, C64 for me.

Jeff-20 wrote:You fucking traitors!
I love the Astrocade; it's a close second. The Vectrex is novel. The Atari 2600 and 7800 are both quite fun, BUT no other device gives a user such a variety of experiences as a Commodore VIC 20. You can enjoy a huge selection of programs in numerous formats: disk, tape, roms, carts...

And you can make your own games! Your own fucking games! Right away. Try learning Bally Basic (after finding the cart and cables needed). The VIC is the most accessible 8bit machine for user creativity. No rom burners needed. This poll should be unanimous.

All of the above is true for the C64 too (and all other 8-bit computers for that matter. I never had nor used a console in the 80s so they aren't part of the comparison for me). For me it comes down to emotional impact. Sure, the VIC was my first computer and I had great fun with it, but it never stole my heart like the C64 did.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:36 am

Jeff-20 wrote:I did some research on the BBC, and it's quite impressive.

Yep, I sometimes refer to the BBC Micro as the European Apple ][.

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:21 am

BBC Micro? Feh! Amstrad CPC FTW!

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:26 am

I should point out that these are the main reasons why the VIC is my fav:
1) It was my first computer;
2) Before the IBM PC, I only had Commodore computers (no Speccy or BBC, which never really caught on in Italy);
3) It's easy to program, as underlined by others here;
4) It was part of the mood of the early Eighties, in the sense that it was part of an affordable and reliable (at least for the standards of the time) hardware/software system, with which one could - for the first time at home - play games, entertain children, write letters and recipes, catalog things in a database, etc.

See here for a good picture of that system

.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 3:59 am

With the risk of getting off-topic, I wonder if Alan Sugar ever would have been interested in building an UK MSX machine. The CPC series in some respects are similar enough that it would have been within reach, unless there were unnecessary licensing costs involved.

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:02 am

Today the VIC is my favourite 8 bit. That was not always the case. I had both a C64 and Atari 800XL in the past as well I used an Apple II+ in the past. I loved them all.

Now as an adult I only have a VIC 20 and I have learned to do so much more on the VIC as a grown up than I could have learned as a child, so perhaps that is why I am so attached to the VIC now. It did remain my "serious" computer for quite some time.

I am still fascinated by those other 8 bits, but since this is now just a hobby for me I don't think I would take on a new 8-bit platform to master. The VIC will still give me many years of new discoveries.

VIC is No. 1.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 7:44 am

pitcalco wrote:...The VIC will still give me many years of new discoveries.

This is another aspect of the Vic I really love. While other platforms continue to produce incredibly impressive games and demos nothing really surprises me. The Vic, however, still surprises me even after nearly 30 years. There's the obvious show-boat stuff like Robotic Liberation et al but there are also some amazing games still coming (Omega Fury and ROQ III for instance). Today, it is entirely possible to have multi-loading disk based games in 'high resolution with speech synthesis and fully animated intros...who saw that coming in 1983?! I can only imagine what other 'goodies' are in the Vic's future.

English Invader · Post by **English Invader** » Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:50 am

The VIC, the Spectrum and the BBC Micro have one important thing in common. Shark Attack is available on all three systems and is not available on the C64

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rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:22 am

... with speech synthesis

Can that be done on a VIC, without the aid of an add-on card? I was thinking how nicely C64 Berzerk Redux was done with its included *.smp files (speech samples) and was wondering if it were technically possible to port it to VIC?

Denial

Is The Vic Your Favourite 8-bit?

Is the VIC-20 your favourite 8-bit machine?