Should the VIC have had a true successor over the C16?

[MadCommodore]

Do you think a VIC-20 compatible machine should have been produced instead of the Commodore 16?

I have read the VIC was nothing more than smoke and mirrors to throw the Japanese off the scent of what C= were really working on and hence prevent hardware piracy (unlikely given the complexity of VIC-II/SID/6510 interfacing together as they do).

The extra colours are welcome in the C16, the case looks nice in black too, but had the replacement for the VIC been compatible with the old VIC do you think games releases would have lasted a fairly long time on the new VIC 20 (maybe call it VIC-40 for a 40 column VIC-20).

[orion70]

Having 40 columns maybe would have been a problem for compatibility (scrambled screen). I wonder if a VIC with BASIC 4.0, switchable 40 columns and RAM would have been feasible (there's also a thread If you could have changed one thing about the VIC...? ).

[Witzo]

I see Bill Mensch's company Western Design Center produces opcode compatible chips to the old MOS series:
http://www.westerndesigncenter.com/wdc/chips.cfm

I wonder if the hardware mages on this forum can build one ultimate VIC20 successor.
/daydream

[sjgray]

Do you think a VIC-20 compatible machine should have been produced instead of the Commodore 16?

I have read the VIC was nothing more than smoke and mirrors to throw the Japanese off the scent of what C= were really working on and hence prevent hardware piracy (unlikely given the complexity of VIC-II/SID/6510 interfacing together as they do).

The extra colours are welcome in the C16, the case looks nice in black too, but had the replacement for the VIC been compatible with the old VIC do you think games releases would have lasted a fairly long time on the new VIC 20 (maybe call it VIC-40 for a 40 column VIC-20).

In a sense, the C64 IS the upgrade for the VIC-20, albeit without the "compatibility" part. And in fact, at one point it WAS going to be called the VIC-40.

Before that though, Commodore actually designed a new 40-column plug-in replacement chip called the 6562 (dubbed the VIC1.5) that would just replace the 6560 VIC chip. They also had a prototype VIC board with more ram. They could easily have gone in this direction instead of building a new machine, but that never seemed to be the way they operated. They were more concerned with cutting costs than compatibility.

Of course they also had the SID chip, so it kinda made sense they would use that. And we know they continued updating the VIC chip to add the sprites. They also switched from using STATIC RAM to the cheaper DYNAMIC RAM. These are some of the factors of the C64's great success.

The C16 had the TED chip, which is similar to the original VIC chip concept in that it contained both the video and audio in one chip. That was so they could cut costs and sell a machine to compete with the low end sinclair at $99. This was actually the C116 machine released in europe. For some reason in north america they decided to use the same casing as the VIC/64 even though the machine is completely different inside. The extra colours are nice, but they should have added those to the VIC-II chip (VIC2.5?) and updated the C64 instead.

If cost was not a factor, I think Commodore could have done a better job of compatibility. In fact I'd say, why wasn't the VIC-20 more PET compatible? They had BASIC4, and 40 columns already. They had IEEE drives, including dual drives, and a keyboard with numeric pad. Simply adding a VIC chip for colour and sound would have been possible. Leaving the CRTC chip for 40 column b/w video would allow the machine to run all existing PET software etc.

Of course doing that would mean the machine would be MORE expensive than the PET and you wouldn't really have a "home" machine.

Still, it's nice to play "what if"...

Steve

[Boray]

The C16 had the TED chip, which is similar to the original VIC chip concept in that it contained both the video and audio in one chip. That was so they could cut costs and sell a machine to compete with the low end sinclair at $99. This was actually the C116 machine released in europe. For some reason in north america they decided to use the same casing as the VIC/64 even though the machine is completely different inside.

If I remember correctly, all three models, Plus/4, C116 and C16 were sold in Europe. But mostly Plus/4s and C16s. C116s are more rare.

[Boray]

I don't get at all why they made three different TED computers, that must have been expensive keeping three models of the same machine in production.

[crock]

I don't get at all why they made three different TED computers, that must have been expensive keeping three models of the same machine in production.

Bil covers the history and decisions (both good and bad) of the TED machines here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPD5N43VIsk

In a nutshell, Commodore lost it's direction after Tramiel's departure and the marketing of the TED was the first example. The C116 was what it should have been, as it was originally intended to be a competitor to the Sinclair Spectrum, but would have undercut the price by a significant margin.

Rob

[fsporsche]

The Vic-20 should of been in production longer, they could of added 32k ram to the computer with a upgraded vic ii chip for enhanced graphics and sound.

[RJBowman]

Or they could have included 64K of RAM with that VICII chip, and also some kind of more advanced Sound Interface Device.

[sjgray]

Ya, but a nice brown case would probably suit it better. Oh, and change the cartrige port and slow down the IEC, add another joystick port, and oh, lets update the processor as well....

er, nevermind something like that would never sell

Steve