Denial

I thought you guys would get a kick out of this. I don't usually post ebay stuff, but I thought this was pretty funny. In typical fashion, some person,who knows nothing about nothing, gets a nice gem and decides to sell it on ebay to make some money.

Here we have a:

vintage COMMODORE 64 VIC-20 COMPUTER SYSTEM - with Original box!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/vintage-COMMODO ... 1658461178

Looks like a smashing deal to me! hehe

I had already seen this Frankenstein. He didn't mention the C16 keyboard in the description.

ha! didn't notice that!

At first, I thought it was a 64 with a VIC-20's box and C16 keyboard but looking at the photo of the cart port, it's a VIC-20 inside a C64's case...

Wow! Indeed a chimera made from 3 different computers.

The [CLEAR HOME] key in place of the [RESTORE] key isn't going to make a NMI either, the 264 series keyboards do not feature that extra signal - it indeed wasn't required since the 7501 CPU does not have a NMI input, BTW.

The box looks like it is for a PET style keyboard machine and the serial number of the box is plausible.

That means it is even more of a frankenstein: VIC20 cost reduced board, C64 case, C16 keyboard, PET-style keys box / polystyrene.

I wouldn't mind the outer cardboard part of the box to complete my PET-style keys VIC-20 (which has polystyrene liner but not the cardboard outer part) but I don't really want the rest of the lot!

Not sure the box is specifically for a PET keyboard VIC. I believe later VICs were sold in the same box --- in fact, I don't even think this was the first design of box for the VIC-20. I think the picture of the PET keyboard VIC on the cover is just because the marketing department department only had an early pre-release model to work with when taking promotional pictures leading up the the VIC's initial release. Photographs from this period were used for many years afterward.

You can tell it's a pre-release model because no VIC-20s (to my knowledge) were ever released with that type "COMMODORE" badge (all black) on the left hand side.

@ral-clan
IIRC, the VIC-20s with PSK came in a large foam box with a slide-on cardboard that held it shut.

Later VIC-20s came in a fully card-boarded box that was closed down by sliding in 2 cardboard flaps. Inside that box were 2 pieces of styrofoam at each end of the computer's keyboard.

Concerning what you said about "early release" models, if you look carefully at the cover of the C64 Programmer's Reference Guide, you'll notice the C64 has a PET Style Keyboard which is... pure nonsense...