How Many Game Cartridges Did You Have?

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:29 pm

I'm immensely curious about the business facet of the VIC-20 so I'm posting a few different polls (thanks for voting!) to find out more about people's setups back in the day. In this case I'm wondering how many game cartridges (not utility carts or RAM expanders) you had back when your VIC-20 was your primary computer.

If you remember what cartridges you had and you want to list them, that would be great too.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:14 am

Neither my brother nor me when I took over his VIC-20 had any games or other cartridges. We once borrowed three games from a friend of his (Road Race, A World at War, can't remember the third one).

My very first cartridge was a 12K (!) RAM expansion with room for another 2K if I could have afforded. It used to contain some demo software, removed before reselling the cartridge. It was bought perhaps late 1985, early 1986.

My very first game cartridges were Avenger, Shamus and Pirate's Cove, included with the VIC-20 I bought in 1994-95. It lasted for a week or so. Fortunately I found another boxed two-prong VIC-20 locally right after that. It camed with boxed Jelly Monsters and some more game. So in practise, it took me 10 years to get ahold of my first game cartridge.

Bacon · Post by **Bacon** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:27 am

Only one: Radar Rat Race, bought in a department store in Hamburg on a holiday trip to Germany in the summer of 1983.

I had one legit game on cassette too: Skramble.

All other games (quite a few) were pirated copies on cassette.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:44 am

Bacon wrote:Only one: Radar Rat Race, bought in a department store in Hamburg on a holiday trip to Germany in the summer of 1983.

I had one legit game on cassette too: Skramble.

All other games (quite a few) were pirated copies on cassette.

Pretty much the same (incredible how similar were our VIC stories all over Europe

): Radar Rat Race, plus cassettes from the newsstand (mostly pirated games).

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:54 am

I can't remember exactly which ones I had but I know I didn't have many. I certainly had the ubiquitous Avenger but also Adventureland, Jupiter Lander, Omega Race but other than that I'm not sure - it was a long time ago!

Nobody I knew then had carts. They really weren't a big thing around here. Everybody bought tapes so very few shops actually stocked carts. As a wee kid I could never understand why every game wasn't released in a big box on robust media with instant loading...Now, as a cynical adult, I get the economics of it all.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 4:17 am

No original game cartridges actually.

I bought a 3K expander in 1986, and found a Personal Finance cart on a flea market in 1995. I converted the Personal Finance cart to a game cartridge holding a self-written BASIC game in 2006.

Greetings,

Michael

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:02 am

ORIGINALLY (i.e. back in the day) I had:

Omega Race
Gorf
Garden Wars
...for sure.

And I might have also had VIC Avenger.

Of course I traded cartridges temporarily for weekends with friends.
Everything else was on tape.

Nowadays I own between 80-100 different cartridges I think - but that doesn't count for this poll.

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 8:08 am

ral-clan wrote:Nowadays I own between 80-100 different cartridges I think - but that doesn't count for this poll.

Which makes me wonder, does the Mega-Cart count as one cartridge or all cartridges?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:55 am

One. We're talking physical items here, not what they contain

(for the record, I think I'm up to about 150 now)

gklinger · Post by **gklinger** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 10:03 am

Mayhem: To the best of you knowledge, how many VIC-20 game cartridges were there in total?

Gary_Leeds · Post by **Gary_Leeds** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:46 am

off the top of my head and without looking at a list i had

Cosmic Cruncher
Donkey Kong
Omega Race
Money Wars
Clowns
Radar Rat Race
Gorf
Mole Attack
Jupiter Lander
Super Slot
Avenger
Jailbreak
Defender
All the scott adams carts

So thats about 18 but im sure i had more of the Atari range as well so probably about 25 in total

formater · Post by **formater** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:27 pm

I have no cartridge, no tapes and no disks, I only have programs writes by me (all lost in time) and copied from a spanish magazine called Club Commodore.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:57 pm

gklinger wrote:Mayhem: To the best of you knowledge, how many VIC-20 game cartridges were there in total?

If we're just talking games here, then according to my files for DP there are 175 US and 19 non-US cartridges known so far (although this does not discount duplication for say the Audiogenic releases in the UK and of course the highly rare 3 Japanese releases of Pac-man, Galaxian and Rally-X). I haven't got any of the Handic duplications listed yet, I may fill that in with due time...

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:44 am

Cartridges I had in the early 80's were:
-The count
-Pirate's cove
-Pinball spectacular
-Clowns
-Road Race

6502dude · Post by **6502dude** » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:59 am

I didn't buy any.

I bought Vic-20 for programming and to solve some math problems more quickly and easlity than doing the problems with a calculator.

Latter, I picked up a couple of cassette based games (Power Blaster + Alphoids) to check out graphics. I don't think I have ever played these games for more than 5 mins each in total, since buying them.