VIC exhibit at VCF East 2021
Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2021 5:28 pm
Last weekend was Vintage Computer Festival East XVI, and I decided to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the North American release of the VIC-20.
I approached it from three angles: early VIC, common VIC, and late VIC
The next table over was fellow Denial member VintageVolts, also exhibiting VIC-20 equipment, so I was in good company. His approach was to assemble an era-appropriate fully-loaded VIC if money were no object. I don't have a good picture of my own to embed.
Former Commodore employee and "VIC Commando" Michael Tomczyk was in attendance, and briefly had a moment to look at the exhibit before heading to his VIP table to interact with guests and sign stuff for folks. Nice guy. He gave a talk on Saturday afternoon of the show which will probably make its way to youtube within the next month or so.
I had fun putting this exhibit together and demonstrating the charm that makes the VIC-20 my favorite vintage computer.
I approached it from three angles: early VIC, common VIC, and late VIC
- Early was the 1001006 motherboard w/ revised heatsink, gold label, PET keyboard attached to a late 70s TV with an RF modulator, using only cartridges and tapes for loading software. Its backup was a gold label with a CR keyboard and a 324003 motherboard (I cycled them out every few hours to keep them cool).
- Common was a 324003 motherboard, rainbow label, common CR keyboard, using composite, and connected to a VIC-1540. It also sat in a VIC-1020 case, hiding a cartridge or two, running software mostly on cartridge or disk.
- Late was a 250403 motherboard, rainbow label, and in a showing Commodore making parts-bin machines, a PET keyboard again. It was connected to an 1802 monitor with composite, and used an SD2IEC and Penultimate+ cartridge to showcase a late machine running some of the newer toys, and showing off what the VIC is really capable of when pushed. Its backup was my custom "Rally VIC" made up of spare parts.
The next table over was fellow Denial member VintageVolts, also exhibiting VIC-20 equipment, so I was in good company. His approach was to assemble an era-appropriate fully-loaded VIC if money were no object. I don't have a good picture of my own to embed.
Former Commodore employee and "VIC Commando" Michael Tomczyk was in attendance, and briefly had a moment to look at the exhibit before heading to his VIP table to interact with guests and sign stuff for folks. Nice guy. He gave a talk on Saturday afternoon of the show which will probably make its way to youtube within the next month or so.
I had fun putting this exhibit together and demonstrating the charm that makes the VIC-20 my favorite vintage computer.