Cartridges!!!

[chysn]

Man, I love VIC-20 cartridges.

I know I can play anything I want from an SD card. And I have. I know I can buy a single cartridge with hundreds of games on it. And I might. But I love having just a huge pile of cartridges that would have made my ten-year-old self drool with envy, that poor guy with five carts*. The ability to browse physically beats clicking through menus every time.

My favorites? Hard to say. Lode Runner might be it in terms of making the VIC-20 shine. Omega Race, of course, is an incredible port, infinitely re-playable. Tutankham is one of the jewels of my collection, as it's damn hard to find for sale.

The worst? Q-Bert kind of throws in the towel to the VIC-20's development challenges. But I'll never give up my Q-Bert cart! Choplifter is technically well-done, but it doesn't have any level advancement. You win the game after saving 64 guys.

I have some modern ones from TFW8B, too. You know what I have? Cheesy Trials on cartridge. I might have the only Cheesy Trials cartridge on earth!

Do you collect cartridges? What are your favorites? What's the pride of your collection?

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* Adventureland, GORF, Jupiter Lander, Omega Race, Sargon II Chess

[Orac]

They are big chunky beasts that need lots of effort to insert/remove them. An essential part of the VIC experience!

When I was a kid I had Omega Race, Pirate's Cove, Avenger, Radar Rat Race and Sargon II. Now I only have Omega Race and a Penultimate Cartridge. I am slowly rebuilding my VIC collection after foolishly selling it a few years back.

[doug_in_nc]

As a kid I only had Sargon II and The Count on cartridge. I know it's not the greatest game, but my favorite cartridge today is Amok! I grew up in the UK, and it was released on cassette there, not cartridge. To be able to play it by just putting a cartridge in instead of waiting five minutes for it to fail to load from tape would have been a dream The "best" one I have would be Skyblazer - it really showcases the VIC's capabilities and has great playability. Sadly, it's not so easy to find today, and not talked about much.

[akator]

I didn't have a VIC growing up. I bought my first one around 2007-2008. I have around 45 unique carts plus around 20 duplicates.

I like having VIC carts but don't use them often, I prefer my multicart options and loading games from SD2IEC. That applies to my other systems as well, while I have some carts I really prefer the modern flash cart, drive emulator, and optical drive emulators. These newfangled modern things are just too convenient...

[beamrider]

As a teenager I had Jelly Monsters and Super-Lander.

I too had to have the original cartridge even though I have them on the mega-cart, just for the box, artwork and smell.

[Mayhem]

I will have to take a shot of my new VIC20 cartridge shelves once I have unpacked the games from my flat move. Currently doing C64, VIC20 will be next. Would probably make your ten year old persona wet himself

[javierglez]

My original VIC is still alive. But back then at some point it had started to freeze whenever the fitted cartridge had a slight movement. Most times I had the 16kB cartridge installed. I was afraid some day the VIC would break, so I started to hate swapping cartridges.

Anyways I only had Sargon II, Road Race, and a few months before I upgraded to a C128, I had gotten Avenger. Regarding cassettes I had Blitzkrieg, Tank Commander and Submarine Commander. But my soft spot were the games from magazine type-ins.

[mathom]

I must have been a true nerd. My first cartridge was the SuperExpander. After that I did get Omega Race and I think Amok. At the time I was always poor and got most of my software from magazine type-ins. Somewhere in there I got the HES SyntheSound cartridge which was a favorite. I think at some point I got the VICmon cartridge also as I had aspirations of writing some "wicked" software. I don't think I had much assembly language figured out by the time my original VIC died. I wish I had saved that one since the knowledge now available on the internet would probably have allowed me to repair it.

[Barney]

I would say my favorate game carts in my collection were River Rescue, Submarine Commander, Robin Hood, Capture the Flag and Ghost Manor. Over the years I have been collection Carts like a madman and am close to owning every one. I'd say my rarest cart is Close Encounters of the Worst Kind.

I remember towards the end of the Vic's life, various stores like Toys R' Us, included all the Scott Adams carts with the computer purchase. Good memories.

[AndyH]

I have some modern ones from TFW8B, too. You know what I have? Cheesy Trials on cartridge. I might have the only Cheesy Trials cartridge on earth!

Even I haven't got it on cartridge! I know what you mean, part of the experience and the feelings of a tangible item we had back then.

Cartridges here in the UK were not as common. I had and loved Adventureland, Omega Race and (super) Alien. Liked Radar Rat Race for the scrolling maze but it's only a so-so game and Avenger and Jupiter Lander were good versions but not what I'd play often. Most of the other games mentioned above I had on tape (submarine commander is ace).

I grabbed every cassette game I could find, which became harder from late 1984. I ended up with quite a few and I love a good (or cheesy) cover and instructions as much as the game itself.

[Barney]

I got back into the Vic pretty heavy in 2007 when it was still actually possible to gets good carts off Ebay. It's really dried up lately. All you see now are the commons. My collection would choke a horse, I have tons of carts that I haven't seen on Ebay since I bought them. I was looking at them today and was quite impressed. Maybe I'll take some pictures of my collection and post it.

[Mayhem]

I would say my favorate game carts in my collection were River Rescue, Submarine Commander, Robin Hood, Capture the Flag and Ghost Manor. Over the years I have been collection Carts like a madman and am close to owning every one. I'd say my rarest cart is Close Encounters of the Worst Kind.

I'd be interested to see what you have, in regards to any that I might not own myself especially. I can almost guarentee you'll be missing at least 15-20 carts as I've been looking for nearly 20 years and have not seen some of them at all in that period. Feel free to PM me at some point!

[Barney]

Sounds good. I'll go through and see which ones I'm missing in my collection. BTW, I am proud to say I was lucky to have bought the Mega-Cart when it came out. I'm one of the early buyers (serial # 48 and 49). Did you get one as well?

[Mayhem]

Sounds good. I'll go through and see which ones I'm missing in my collection. BTW, I am proud to say I was lucky to have bought the Mega-Cart when it came out. I'm one of the early buyers (serial # 48 and 49). Did you get one as well?

I do have one (some of my cart dumps are ON the Megacart!) but no idea what my serial number is offhand.

EDIT - checked, it’s #0018

[Mayhem]

Well due to this thread getting bumped, I took a photo of the cart bookcase…