Assistance with cart rarity list

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 7:43 am

I'm in charge of the Vic20 section at Digital Press. Yep, someone's gotta do it now Ward's retired. Anyhow, I fancy it's time to let the people here see what is currently in the database and suggest changes and alterations (especially on rarity and price) to what I currently have.

You can view the current listing here (Excel spreadsheet):

http://62.168.142.47/~mayhem/images/vic20denial.xls

The real spreadsheet I have has many, many more columns... this is just all the pertinent stuff

All prices are for LOOSE only (in US$). Naturally complete copies would go for more.

If anything is missing and you feel it should also be in there, let me know.

So thanks in advance for any assistance here

(oh and Frogman will be coming out of Rumour Mill as I recently found a copy!)

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sat Feb 05, 2005 9:24 pm

Yeah... Update the rarity of the Denial Collection :p

I gave one to Joe at a party and his house was robbed shortly there after (must have been very desireable)...

I told him I was going to make 100... but I only ended up making 25 or so.

I would love to have a collectible

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:05 pm

Why are you listing a 1996 disk based demo along with 198x cartridge based software (or for that matter, Jeff's Denial tape) ?

Is Colorbot a cartridge anyway?

On the non-game section, I'm sure there are lots more RAM expansions missing. Dunno if you want to list all brands available, or if they are to be considered equal. There also are a few Basic expanders and others which are missing from the list:

UMI: "Buti Plus" (Audiogenic VP052 + VP074 ?)
Supersoft: "Mikro Assembler" (Audiogenic VP078)
VIC Graf (VIC-201), VIC Forth (VIC-202), VIC Stat (VIC-203)

The VIC Forth is also known as Datatronic Forth, as it was made by them. I think the other two 20x are Swedish. Peter Karlsson owns VIC Graf.

Have you gone through the list and compared to the ROMs uploaded to the FTP? I know those are not accurate, as some tape games have appeared during the years, but at least those > 4K data and not appearing to copy themselves down to RAM should be somewhat reliable.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 4:43 pm

A lot of it is what was left me by Ward, including the ROM sizes and such, so I'm trusting him that he got them right

As for RAM expansions, just sticking mainly to the official ones otherwise there'd be oodles of them heh.

More interested in what people thinking of the main sections up the top.

As for homebrew, actually I'm not sure considering they aren't on cart, but as also said, what was left over from being given to me.

Handic utility carts are probably up for inclusion though. Got full details for them?

flicky · Post by **flicky** » Sun Feb 06, 2005 6:52 pm

Mat,

I thought that the DP Guide only covered game cartridges - utility and productivity carts always used to be excluded in the past (from the non-Atari VCS sections at least) - or is this changing for the next edition?

Cheers
Jon

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:09 am

The "problem" is that at least Commodore themselves, and maybe also HES, interleaved games, educational and productivity software in their numbering scheme. I'd think either you're not listing known cartridges and leave holes in the numbering, or list some but not all or list all certain releases. Anyway, doesn't Super Expander, Microlog AIR or Synthesound have any rarity value only because they're not games?

Mayhem, what kind of full details do you need? Name, company, year, serial number. Obviously I can't supply you with a rarity value out of the blue. I believe the Rabbit fastloader, Quick Brown Fox etc also should go into the list if we can find details. Some of the "missing" ROMs on the FTP may be homebrewn image files, but certainly not all. Maybe conduct an "interview" with Marko how he once acquired all those uploaded files. As I wrote above, some files I know can be filtered out while other may need more investigation about their source.

ps: Is a VIC-20 console more difficult to find than a RAM expansion?

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Mon Feb 07, 2005 4:45 am

DP Guide now has a section 8 for non-games, demos and utilities. It certainly gets included into the online searchable version present on their site, but whether it makes it into the print versions is another matter.

As for new entries, generally need information such as:

Name
Publisher
Developer/Programmer(s)
Year of release
Rarity and value
Description about what the cart is/does
Where it was released (US or abroad)
Serial/part number if it has one
ROM size if known

To be honest, I'm more concerned over getting what is currently there correct then adding new entries, but I'm open to putting some more in if I think they are pertinent and items people would know about.

billlagr · Post by **billlagr** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 6:11 am

Is the link broken?
Specifically, I wanted to see if you had the Adman Speech Synth cartridge in there...I have one but no manual :/

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Sun Feb 13, 2005 10:12 am

Shouldn't be, though it is a bit temperamental from time to time (that's the web hosting!).

Post by **Jeff-20** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:38 am

I, for one, strongly support the inclusion of Jeff's Denial Tape in DP!!

Post by **Jeff-20** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 12:39 am

I, for one, strongly support the inclusion of Jeff's Denial Tape in DP!!

flicky · Post by **flicky** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:16 pm

I've done some research, using these 3 sources:

1. "The Best Software Guide: Vic 20 & Commodore 64 Games" by Tony Takoushi (1984, Pan Books)
2. "Introducing Vicsoft" catalogue (date unknown)
3. "Commodore Softpost" catalogue (Winter 1985).

Having looked through these, I'd suggest adding the following items to the list (sources are in square brackets):-

2 NON-US GAME RELEASES

Audiogenic: Choplifter [Best Software Guide, p.143]
Audiogenic: Cloudburst [Commodore Softpost, p.37 - includes box photo!]
Audiogenic: Meteor Run [Commodore Softpost, p.37]

6 RUMOR MILL

Imagic: Fathom [Best Software Guide, p.147]
Imagic: Moon Sweeper [Best Software Guide, p.147]
Imagic: Nova Blast [Best Software Guide, p.147]
Imagic: Wing War [Best Software Guide, p.147]
Parker Bros: Popeye [Best Software Guide, p.150]
Sirius: Plasmania [Best Software Guide, p.159]

5 NON-CARTRIDGE ITEMS -or- 8 DEMOS, SAMPLERS & NON-GAMES

Stack: Multi Rom carrier (ref VS0176) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.23]

8 DEMOS, SAMPLERS & NON-GAMES

Stack: Vickit 1 cartridge (ref VS0174) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.22]
Stack: Vickit 2 cartridge (ref VS0175) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.22]
Stack: Vickit 3 cartridge (ref VS0169) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.22]
Stack: Vickit 4 cartridge (ref VS0171) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.22]
Stack: Vickit 5 cartridge (ref VS0173) [Introducing Vicsoft, p.24]

I'd be interested to know what other people think here.

Mat, I've sent you an email re: this and our trade.

Cheers
Jon

flicky · Post by **flicky** » Mon Feb 14, 2005 7:27 pm

Ooops, forgot to include 3 more items for section 8 (Demos, Samplers & Non-Games), all of which I personally own:-

Commodore: Vic RS232C terminal type cart
Creative: Household Finance
UMI: Vi Term B

(I will trade these 3 for games I'm after btw)

Cheers
Jon

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 2:08 am

The RS232 interface though goes into the user port, not cartridge port? I own a VIC-1011A (or B) myself. There also is VIC-REL, a relay based monitoring system which also goes into the user port and should not be listed in a cartridge rarity listing, just as little as most modems should. There were some cartridge-based printer interfaces for the C64 - did those ever exist for the VIC?

Regarding Audiogenic, it seems obvious that they co-operated and relabeled US releases, mainly UMI. Whether those European releases should have their own entries in the rarity guide, I'm too unexperienced to know, but then the few Imagic etc games that appear to have existed in separate NTSC and PAL versions should eventually also get separate entries whenever proof of a physical cartridge is found.

Mayhem, Arma and the GameBase20 people (Dirk etc), when the cartridge rarity list is done, is there any plans to put up a list of tape- and disk based software? I know Café VIC, Ward et. al once started, based on the uploaded files on FTP (which is the wrong way to start IMHO), but a such list would grow rather big and hard to know how much info you will get into it. Then there could be a canonical list of VIC hardware, much like Bo's Commodore list. In this last list, all the individual memory expansions, RS232 interfaces, VIC labeled disk drives etc could be collected.

Mayhem · Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Feb 15, 2005 5:45 am

The DP guide is just carts and will have as much info in there as possible. GB20 will cover all formats but not have as much info (due to the space construde by the interface). As I'm working on both, things will come through me.

I just picked up a copy of Ace (the Cascade flight game) for Vic20 over the weekend and was amazed to see it wasn't in GB20 already. That's one thing that'll go in eventually then!