Introduce Yourself: What's your User Name based on?

[Xerra_]

Not as simple as that. Means having a windows licence, installing some kind of expensive windows emulator, and it would probably run like a dog on this 2010 IMac. I've tried parallels before and it's a horrible resource hog on this machine.

Thanks for the offer of the reset of my original account but, as it had a dead email address and forgotten password, I may as well stick with what I have now.

[Cedarviola]

Some while back I needed a handle, or username for some online forum and I had just finished working on an old viola with a broken back. I carved a new one out of a cedar fence board. Hence the name and it played right fine.

Was cleaning out the garage last week and found my old VIC-20 that had been in storage since the late '80s. Now I'm dead set on restoring, rejuvenating this old beauty. Little by little it comes to life. Here's what I done so far ...

Plugged it in and the red LED lights up. But I got no RF modulator, it grew legs and walked. But reading around found how to 'hotwire' the 5pin DIN to RCA. Aha, got video, worked first time.

But the only key that worked was the spacebar. So to the keyboard -- disassemble, clean, work graphite (pencil lead shavings) into the little pads and keys began to work. Took 3 attempts but now all the keys work -- wonder how long it will last.

AND I was reminded of how nice that keyboard is. Great tactile feel and solid sound. Weird layout but it did not take long to find my way around. I closed my eyes and allowed my mind to wander back in time as I wrote Hello World and actually could find the quote key.

Along the way there was evidence of general flakiness, lockups and screen weirdness. So I popped up and reseated all the chips and connectors. That helped a lot. Holding that venerable 6502 in my hand sent shivers up my spine.

I could not find my Vicmon cartridge, but did have the wonderful programmer's aid cart. But could not plug it in, something in the way. It was the Vicmon! And I remembered, that cart got stepped on one day breaking the plastic case, so I discarded it and kept the card. Ancient memories.

Vicmon would not light up until I cleaned the contacts and reseated, now it works and I still have the manual. All right -- one step at a time.

Now comes the Datasette. Spiders had nested in it. The buttons would not push. A little dis-assembly, cleaning and lube did the trick -- the drive belts are old and stiff but with good cleaning they seem to work.

OK Next step, load a tape. Worked first time. First program to be found was called, "Adj, nouns and verbs" -- a silly little program that created meaningless, random sentences working from data statements. Oh I remember that fun, those first programs. Those first loves.

Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[dave64]

I've been collecting Commodore stuff since the early 90s. dave64 is the clever combination of my name Dave and the 64 from Commodore 64. Yeah, that's not very clever. I'm the creator of the FB group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/commodo ... alsociety/ where we try to focus on the history of Commodore. Thanks for having me here, I look forward to meeting you fine folks.

[ops]

Hi all,

It's great to see that this little machine is still alive. I sold my VIC-20 in 1985 to get a C64 and I have not been involved with VIC-20 since.

A few months ago I found this forum when googling about a new cartridge game for VIC-20. I could not believe there is such an active community and people are still developing software for it. Amazing!

I have now reacquired a VIC again and refamiliarised myself with it. I was able to load and play games that I wrote over 30 years ago from old tapes. What a strange feeling to see them again!

My username... Well, it is the same I have used since I wrote my first game in 1984. Picked from the initials of my real name.

[edinky]

Hi! I've joing this board because I'm trying to make a game for the Vic 20 in assembly as a personal project.

The computer means a lot to me as my grandad taught me BASIC on it in the 80s!

My name Ed Inky is an anagram of my real name

[joshuadenmark]

Hi Ed

We are glad to welcome you and looking forward to see a game from you in the future

[SNB]

Ciriciao,
my handle SNB is short for Senbei, from Senbei Norimaki, main character from manga "Dr. Slump" by Akira Toriyama.
I now own two Vic 20's, but in the 80's I first had a Plus 4 then switched to a C64, so I've never used a Vic 20 back then except sometimes at my friend's place.
I released some C64 programs in the last years but I decided now to do something with the Vic 20.

Senbei.

[Passport.mid]

My nickname is based off of a midi file that you can find in windows 95 at C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA

[dr.geek]

Dr.Geek is just the name I use over at Boulder-Dash.nl - My family got a Vic 20 in 1983. I had seen a family friends PET previous to this. Had a few carts (Vic Avenger, Video Vermin, Gorf), but my real passion became type-ins as I loved that you could learn and modify the programs. I also favor Petscii graphics (from seeing the early PET games)

[DarwinNE]

Hi to all, this is my first post here.

My name comes from a nickname I got in the high school years.
My first name is Davide and someone once mistakenly called me Darwin and it stuck

My mother got a second hand VIC-20 around 1985 and I was immediately hooked.

[AndyH]

Hi everyone

Long time member, first time poster (almost). Thought it was about time I introduced myself

The Vic 20 was my first computer and it holds many fine memories and nostalgia fuzzies. Going from watching TV, to controlling games on a TV and finally making my own rudimentary games on TV was amazing.

I have a couple of programming projects on the go. The first one is staring that little mouse avatar and I'm making it for the Vic's big brother. The second one is a little space shooter for my favourite Vic 20. I'll try to remember to post some progress updates every now and then.

Oh, where does my user name come from? Well my first name is Andy and my last name begins with H - not very imaginative, sorry, but I've used it for some time now and it kind of fits.

[IDLookout]

New member here. Born and raised in North Idaho, my User name is short for Idaho Lookout (My avatar is a Montana Lookout i stayed at a few years ago).

Been a Fire Lookout buff most of my life, from when my family bought a 40' Idaho lookout tower for a $1 from the Forest Service (they were going to burn it down). I slept on the lookout bed, have all of the furniture. My Commodore 64 and 128 (and sometimes Vic-20) sit on the Lookout table, and my TV sits atop the Firefinder Stand.

Just bought a PET Vic-20 off of ebay for $54, looks to be in fantastic shape, but missing the bottom label.

[Mike]

Hi, Andy, welcome (back) to Denial!

[...] I have a couple of programming projects on the go. The first one is staring that little mouse avatar and I'm making it for the Vic's big brother. [...]

That's a cute avatar ... maybe my attachment below makes you consider a port of your game to the VIC-20?

Code: Select all

10 DATA 85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,90,90,90,111,111,111,191,191,154,154,154,239,239,239
11 DATA 251,251,165,165,165,249,249,249,170,170,85,85,85,85,85,85,105,105,85,85,85,85
12 DATA 85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,191,191,191,191,191,191,191,191,251,254,254
13 DATA 254,248,248,248,248,170,0,0,0,0,0,0,2,105,130,130,130,32,32,32,40,85,85,85,85
14 DATA 149,149,149,149,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,191,191,191,191,191,111,111,111,248,248
15 DATA 248,248,248,232,232,232,2,2,0,0,0,0,0,0,40,40,32,32,32,42,42,42,149,149,165,165
16 DATA 165,153,153,153,85,85,85,85,85,85,86,86,90,90,90,85,85,85,170,170,150,150,150
17 DATA 91,91,91,175,175,0,0,0,170,170,170,255,255,191,191,191,255,255,255,255,255,169
18 DATA 169,169,229,229,229,229,229,86,86,86,86,85,85,85,85,170,239,239,239,190,190,190
19 DATA 105,175,255,255,255,175,175,175,111,255,234,234,234,251,250,251,250,255,255,255
20 DATA 255,170,170,170,229,229,149,149,149,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,105,105
21 DATA 85,85,85,170,170,170,111,111,107,107,107,174,170,174,251,250,230,230,230,249
22 DATA 249,249,165,229,150,150,150,91,91,91,85,85,149,149,149,229,229,229,170,170,170
23 DATA 85,85,85,85,85,107,110,107,110,107,110,107,106,185,233,185,165,165,165,149,149
24 DATA 190,190,190,111,111,111,91,91,110,110,110,190,190,190,233,233,229,229,229,149
25 DATA 149,149,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,85,107,110,107,110,106,110,106,85,149,149
26 DATA 149,149,85,85,85,85,91,86,86,86,85,85,85,85,233,149,149,149,85,85,85,85,85,85
27 DATA 85,85,85,85,85,85:POKE55,0:POKE56,28:CLR:FORT=0TO383:READA:POKE7168+T,A:NEXT
28 :
29 V=36864:X1=6:X2=50:Y1=15:Y2=123:IFPEEK(60900)=5THENX1=1:X2=39:Y1=15:Y2=98
30 X=INT(RND(1)*(X2-X1-1))+X1+1:Y=INT(RND(1)*(Y2-Y1-1))+Y1+1
31 DX=1+2*(RND(1)>.5):DY=1+2*(RND(1)>.5):POKEV+2,134:POKEV+3,16:POKEV+5,255
32 POKEV+14,133:POKEV+15,185:FORT=0TO47:POKE7680+T,T:POKE38400+T,8:NEXT
33 :
34 POKEV,X:POKEV+1,Y
35 POKEV+12,0:X=X+DX:IFX=X1ORX=X2THENDX=-DX:POKEV+12,255
36 POKEV+11,0:Y=Y+DY:IFY=Y1ORY=Y2THENDY=-DY:POKEV+11,212
37 GOTO34

(download)

For this small demo, I used pretty much the same workflow as pointed out in another thread.

Greetings,

Michael

[AndyH]

Hi, Andy, welcome (back) to Denial!

[...] I have a couple of programming projects on the go. The first one is staring that little mouse avatar and I'm making it for the Vic's big brother. [...]

That's a cute avatar ... maybe my attachment below makes you consider a port of your game to the VIC-20?

[...]

For this small demo, I used pretty much the same workflow as pointed out in another thread.

Greetings,

Michael

That's brilliant. Now if I could shrink that down a little

[Dynamic_Computing]

Hello all! The VIC-20 was my first computer back in 1982, and I loved that little guy. It vanished in the mid 90's - I wonder what happened to it. I am currently very active in the Amiga Community and host a weekly video series on the Amiga. The link to my website for my series is in my profile.
I recently started feeling the itch to play with my VIC-20 again, so I bid on two of them on eBay. It just happens I won both! Yay for me! One is a newer model with round power connector that came with 9 games, 2nd is an older two prong version, and both work pretty good.
Dynamic Computing is my company name - Dynamic Computing Technologies. I do consulting and service in the I.T. sector in Tucson, Arizona.
In the next few weeks I am going to start a new 8 bit video series.