"In the year 2003, the omegan system developed a method of training its warriors to protect their star colonies. Over the city of Komar, android controlled fighters raced to engage and destroy these omegan warriors."
I guess we are into the future now!
In one Star Trek episode, I think they say that "Kahn" was one of several gene manipulated princes who reigned parts of Earth in 1996. 
And how about the movie "2001" 
Anyway. When they decided to discontinue the vic-20 in 1984, I wonder what the people at Commodore whould have thought about us today??? What whould they think about us? Crazy people who prefers to play with a 20+ years old computer instead of todays speed monsters? And would they think twice before discontinuing the vic if they had known about us?
For me the vic-20 is something special. It's like having a bit of technical history at your fingertips. Like if every train enthuthiast would be able to have his own steam locomotive. And not only one, a couple of different locomotives, all running and in working condition, with waggons and all.
I think we can be very happy to have such a fun and inexpensive hobby as the vic-20! I think the steam locomotive and the vic-20 is a good analogy - both are objects from the childhood of its ear. And they both are very simple in their design compared to today's counterparts. Simple enough that you can understand how they work and even make some repairs.Something that suprises me a bit is that tapes recorded in 1983 still loads without any trouble 21 years laters. I doubt very much that any of todays harddisks will work 20 years from now. They will all be dead by then. I also doubt that the computers of today will work at all after 20 years. They are filled with fans to keep the heat down, and the companies probably only dimension the hardware to work for 6-7 years. Then they excpect people to have upgraded to the next generation.
Anyway, that was some thoughts about the future, the past and the vic-20. You are welcome to comment.
/Anders
