If you could have changed one thing about the VIC...?

Post by **joshuadenmark** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 11:32 am

I would change nothing, it's just perfect !!! I love it

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 12:07 pm

Hmm, so many little annoyances...
1. Volume controls for each voice
2. More choice of screen and character address (down to the byte

)
3. A grey in the palette (maybe the C64 palette?)
4. All colours available everywhere
5. Integer BASIC variables (8 or 16 bit)
6. 2 pixel left/right screen positioning (instead of 4)

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 4:01 pm

Kweepa, you're so fussy!

Though, I do have to admit to often yearning for a shade of grey in the palette. That was the single stand out feature when I first got my C16. That thing's got a lovely array of colours to play with.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 5:41 pm

Kweepa wrote: 6. 2 pixel left/right screen positioning (instead of 4)

Why not 1?

Kweepa · Post by **Kweepa** » Mon Nov 05, 2012 8:02 pm

I chose 2 because that's the step that the screen can be positioned up/down.

Also, it wouldn't be possible to slide it fully off screen to left or right if it was one byte and moved in 1 pixel increments.

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 4:55 am

It would if the register controlling it was longer.

RJBowman · Post by **RJBowman** » Tue Nov 06, 2012 8:51 am

How long is the register?

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Fri Nov 09, 2012 1:26 pm

Kweepa wrote:3. A grey in the palette (maybe the C64 palette?)

The Vic-20 is "your friendly color computer", therefore it offers the rainbow colors red-orange-yellow-green-cyan-blue-purple in dark and bright. See here.

I would not change that.

RJBowman · Post by **RJBowman** » Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:21 pm

I might have traded one of the shades of orange for gray; how often do you use two shades of orange? If I had to sacrifice two more to get two more grays, I could get by without light yellow and light cyan.

From what I've read of the VIC-II chip, the color choices were largely arbitrary and could have been different. Is this also the case with the first VIC chip?

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 6:36 am

Kananga wrote:
Kweepa wrote:3. A grey in the palette (maybe the C64 palette?)
The Vic-20 is "your friendly color computer", therefore it offers the rainbow colors red-orange-yellow-green-cyan-blue-purple in dark and bright. See here.

I would not change that.

Are my eyes deceiving me or do you manage to mix the colours to get new shades?
I'd like to download that program! Is it available somewhere?

Kananga · Post by **Kananga** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 1:09 pm

Witzo wrote: Are my eyes deceiving me or do you manage to mix the colours to get new shades?
I'd like to download that program! Is it available somewhere?

I was trying to mix the colors by switching between two colorsets on every frame, but it it only looks good on the picture. In reality the screen is flickering terribly.

Witzo · Post by **Witzo** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 2:50 pm

Kananga wrote:
Witzo wrote: Are my eyes deceiving me or do you manage to mix the colours to get new shades?
I'd like to download that program! Is it available somewhere?
I was trying to mix the colors by switching between two colorsets on every frame, but it it only looks good on the picture. In reality the screen is flickering terribly.

Haha! Well done, the photo works out.
On the Amiga I have a 'flicker fixer' between my computer and the monitor to make interlace screens bearable to watch. Would something like that be possible for the VIC too, to display things like your colour program?

Dusty · Post by **Dusty** » Mon Nov 12, 2012 1:38 pm

A reset button for sure. That was the first modification I made on that machine!

adric22 · Post by **adric22** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 12:45 pm

I'm going to have to go with more video resolution.. and here's why..

Yes, I believe RAM is the most limiting factor on the machine but there are two things to consider about RAM:

The user can always upgrade the RAM at a later time, by adding a RAM expansion. It was not possible to upgrade the video.
Most of the good software came on cartridge ROM anyway, so RAM wasn't need except to store variables and 5K was plenty for that most of the time.

The Sound was obviously poor, but in many ways it was better than average. Compare to the Apple II for example! So I'd leave the sound alone.

Having 40 columns would have made the machine much more capable of things like calling BBSs with terminal programs, spreadsheets, word processing, etc. Granted the later two of those would have required a RAM expander, but at least that would have been possible.

Now.. Others have said what they would sacrifice in order to get the better feature. THat's a tough call. I guess the only thing I can come up with is price.. I'd sacrifice by having to pay a little bit more money to get the machine. If that didn't work I guess I'd sacrifice sound as long as there were an option for the user to add sound (by installing a chip or something into an empty socket) or maybe I'd sacrifice color. The VIC only had 8 useable colors anyway (unless you count the background) so I'd just about rather have 40 columns monochrome. I wouldn't want the setup in the PET though because I do believe having a redifineable character set is extremely important. In fact, I would hope this better resolution VIC-20 would have some sort of true bit-mapped mode also.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 4:30 pm

The more I read this list, the more it validates the C16.