Denial

Preface: I grew up with a C64, I didn't have a VIC-20 (or even use one) until the late 90's, early 2000's. So my experience will likely be different from those of you who grew up with a VIC. I've been using the VIC more recently, discovering everything published for it that I missed out on. And it's gotten me thinking about things I really like or dislike about the VIC, especially when making the comparison to other home computers of its era.

Things I like:

1. Great keyboard compared to other micros of the era, for example the Apple ][ wouldn't get cursor or function keys until 1983.
2. The sound chip is primitive, but has a certain charm to it. It's capable of several voices simultaneously, again compares very favorably to other micros of the era, many of which only have a simple beeper.
3. Even though 22 columns of text seems a weird number, there is something about this resolution that works well. Text is very readable at this size, and it's brilliant for games using character mode tiles. I wish they'd included the VIC-I's 22-column mode as an option when they developed the VIC-II.

Things that could have been better:

1. Only 5KB RAM - It would have been nice if VIC had a full bank of RAM (8KB) from the factory. Asking users to buy separate memory expansions for 3KB and 8KB+ made life more difficult and probably fragmented the software market. (see below)
2. Memory management - Moving the start of BASIC, screen address, and color RAM based on the amount of memory present is just insane. Same with putting a block of ROM in between RAM areas. I have to think these architecture decisions limited the commercial software developed for it.
3. Only one joystick port - OK, so Commodore wasn't really pushing it as a games console, and they were cheap. I get it. But again, we probably would have seen more commercial games if there had been a second joystick port.
4. Color palette - It's not a huge deal, but I'm not crazy about the colors that VIC-1 produces. The palette just seems drab. At least it's better than CGA's magenta, cyan, and white.

What do you guys think? What do you love or hate about the VIC?

I don't hate anything about the VIC-20. None of the things that were compromises back then matter to me now. Memory expansions, multicarts, SD2IEC, everything I could have ever dreamed of back then is easily available and affordable.

fuzzybad wrote:The palette just seems drab.

Yeah. Especially in the view what VIC-I can do with this palette:







From Commodore Free Magazine #38:

Q. What 3 things would you change about the VIC-20 if you were able to go back in time and help redesign the machine?

A. - The 3K RAM between 1024 to 4095 should have been populated as well. That would have allowed to locate the screen at 1024, not only increasing the amount of accessible RAM for the VIC chip, but there would also never have been any problems because of a relocating text screen with bigger RAM extensions.
- Nice would have been an error-free shift register in the VIA chip. That would have given us fast floppies right from the start, without the necessity for the CBM developers to re-implement the IEC protocol bit-banging style in software.
- Separate luma, and chroma, instead of composite video output.

These features would have kept the essence of the VIC-20. And for any other enhancements regarding graphics, sound, and memory, there's still the C=64 around.

I grew up with the vic-20 and I agree to most things there except for the palette. I would also have prefered if the basic screen adapted when resizing the screen. That would have been great for PAL.

It is what it is and you either like it or you don't.

Yeah. Especially in the view what VIC-I can do with this palette:

Those photos are amazing! Be honest, these examples are light years beyond what the engineers even dreamed was possible with VIC-1.
At any rate, the color palette is a personal preference. The color choices are fine; I'd just like it better if they were brighter.

I agree with you on 3 ways to improve the VIC if it were possible to go back and talk to the engineers. The 3K memory hole is the worst, in my opinion. Anyway, I'd hoped to focus on things that people love about the VIC, not just the parts that could have been better.

The VIA bug probably didn't even affect VIC-20 users much, because disk drives were rare and expensive back then. And loading time for a 5k program really doesn't make much difference even with software bit banging. (The VIA bug affected C64 users big time tho)

There's really not much I don't like about the VIC-20. Perhaps two things others have already mentioned:

• The memory hole.
  The 6522 VIA bug.

It would also have been nice if there had been a 40 column mode. If the VIC had that, it would have been a real competitor with the Apple II.

But those didn't bug me in the 1980s when I was using the VIC. I wasn't even aware of those problems.

Got my first victory about 2 years ago so my poverty may be a little different as well.

I love it's simplicity. I'very been teaching myself how to program with and it is an easy system to learn on for a newbie with no programing experience.

The limitations on use able space for screen data graphics etc. May be frustrating from time to time but they also help inspire creativity . When trying to make a good game you really have to work to be createffective something intersting.

As a musician I love the sound if the vic all though there are not many who seem to share my feelings on this.

The thing that I love the most is how helpful and supportive the vic community is... thank you everybody. This forum has been exceptionally helpful in helping me learn how to program and repair my vic.

I also love the fact that I have a computer as old as I am and still works beautifully with all original parts short of 1 via chip. You don'the get that kind of reliability out of a modern pc.

The only thing I would change about the vic would be to make the whole memory map visible to the vic chip, at least expansion areas would be nice.

R'zo wrote: As a musician I love the sound if the vic all though there are not many who seem to share my feelings on this.

I like it. It has a powerful analog sound. Maybe the most powerful feel among all 8-bit machines.

Oh, I forgot to mention what I loved about the VIC-20:

1. I also love the sound of the VIC-chip. The bass notes are very "growly" and characteristic. Very different than other pulse/square wave chips.

2. I love the white case --- it looked like a little brother to the PET.

3. Same goes for the PET/Microgramma keyboards. They made the VIC-20 look more like a home PET computer, plus, it was also the font used in the Star Trek movies so I liked that connection.

4. I really like that the VIC uses the exact same pixel-for-pixel font that the PET computer does. Because of the VIC's wider characters, the proportions are not the same, but it's the exact same CHAR ROM (it seems), unlike the C64 which used the Atari 8-bit font. I don't mind the C64 font, but I just like the VIC's better because of that connection to the PET.

Only wish it had 40 columns other than that, i loved programming it and the fun games.

She was my first true love <3 no hate whatsoever

There is plenty of hate in the world without directing it at our beloved VICs. Agreed it has it's limitations, but then hasn't every computer throughout the years? Bigger and better things came along which is why for so many people like me it was their first computer but we soon moved on, only to return in later years.

So what I love most about the VIC is it's accessiblity. It gave so many of us the chance to do what seemed impossible, to make things happen on the TV screen that we could influence. I knew nothing of memory gaps or screen sizes back then, what I knew was that I could turn it on and put stuff on the screen. That was pure magic

I never really thought, back then, that the memory expansion fuss had "fragmented the software market". In those years, I just had the very clear idea that I was simply too poor to afford one. But in perspective yes, that's a clever remark. Had they put a little bit more of memory as a standard feature, most probably the software market would have been more fizzy for everyone.

Personally I have always loved the colour palette of the VIC, and I was very surprised by finding it in the "cons" paragraph. I wonder if it may be a problem of your computer/TV/monitor combo, or perhaps due to poor emulation if you're using an emulator.

All other limitations (22 columns, etc.) were not really a deal back then. Who has my age perfectly remembers that - very simply put - there was no home computer for the average workers before the VIC 20, so basically there was absolutely nothing to compare it with. What I really missed was a decent, random-access mass memory at an affordable price, but again there were no such things as affordable mass memories back then; willy-nilly you had to go with compact cassettes.

By the way, most if not all limitations could have been outflanked in one way or another, as today hardware and software amateur amazing produtcs clearly show. The fact that "engineers at Commodore never though that pictures as the ones above could be displayed by the VIC" is true but also trivial. Also engineers at Atari didn't thought that the 2600 could perform as in the most remarkable Activision games, but indeed it could. The main difference is that the 2600 had a very long commercial lifespan, while the VIC had a relatively short one and its full potential was left undeployed under many aspects. By the way the incompatibility with its successors was what mined Commodore business since its early stage IMHO, that's really short-seeing. Incompatibility was the norm in those years, but in-make incompatibility was considered extremely annoying even back then.