Denial

Ok,

So I finally received the VIC20 I'd been promised a few weeks ago.. Not just one, but TWO! One has the Rainbow badge, the other has the original badge, both have the same two pin power supply connection. I'm completely new to the VIC20 as I've never owned one back in the day.

I'm big into the C64, but need to be pointed in a direction for things I can do 3583 bytes free. (It'll be a couple+ weeks before I can plunk down the dough for a memory expansion.) -- Oh did I mention that I have a SDIEC device and floppy drive already.

And I stuck typing short BASIC programs in until I get some sort of memory expansion?

-8b

Welcome to VIC-20 ownership! Since you have the SDIEC already, you should head over here to grab some disk/cart images for unexpanded VICs:
http://www.zimmers.net/anonftp/pub/cbm/vic20/

eightbitswide wrote:I [...] need to be pointed in a direction for things I can do [with] 3583 bytes free.

Here's a shameless plug for my Unexpanded VIC-20 Type-In Games Collection.

(you'll need +24K though, to read the accompanying instructions -> READ ME ... of course you always can take VICE to the rescue)

Suggest grid-runner and pulse for starters...

beamrider wrote:Suggest grid-runner and pulse for starters...

Grid runner shows me that this system can perform just as strong as the c64 given the right circumstances.
Pulse is absolutely brilliant.

eightbitswide wrote:Grid runner shows me that this system can perform just as strong as the c64 given the right circumstances.

VIC-20 and C64 use (nearly) the same CPU, (nearly) the same BASIC and can use (nearly) the same peripherals on the IEC bus and user port. That's about where the similarities end.

The C64 still hasn't got a faithful port of Doom (even if the implementation on VIC-20 requires +35K RAM and is a good test for any RAM expansion) - and for unexpanded VIC-20, you can easily take "The Keep" as preview (download).

eightbitswide wrote:

beamrider wrote:Suggest grid-runner and pulse for starters...

Grid runner shows me that this system can perform just as strong as the c64 given the right circumstances.
Pulse is absolutely brilliant.

The VIC-20 is actually slightly faster than the C64 because on the C64 the video chip steals cycles from the CPU to perform it's display operations.

It's possible to make the C64 as fast as the VIC-20 if you disable the display.

There are a few games I think have a much better implementation on the VIC-20 than any other platforms. Lunar Leeper is one of them.

Well I've been doing a bit of a comparison recently, between VIC 20, C64, Dragon 32, and BBC Micro.

Now the "Daddies" of that line up are surely the BBC and the C64, but, the mighty VIC has some very good versions of some of the earlier video games.

For instance:

I think the VIC has the best version of Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Blitz, than any of those.
As already mentioned Gridrunner, in fact pretty much anything written by Jeff Minter is also very good indeed.
You could try Abductor, Metagalactic Llamas Battle at the Edge of Time, The Matrix, and Hellgate (but that is +8K)
Also worthy of note are Skyhawk and Tornado by Quicksilver, one of them is unexpanded and a slightly simpler version of the other which is +3k or +8K.
Chariot Race is also good.
On cartridges, you could look out for Omega Race and Road Race, but there are loads of other good ones.
As for newer games, Tetris is better than the c64 one, or any I've seen on the BBC. Frogger is certainly just as good as the BBC version That said, my personal favourite is still Hoppit from the welcome tape.

In the meantime, what do I need to run the games in the Gamebase20 collection? Will a simple memory expansion cart work for this?

16KVIC20 wrote:Well I've been doing a bit of a comparison recently, between VIC 20, C64, Dragon 32, and BBC Micro.

Now the "Daddies" of that line up are surely the BBC and the C64, but, the mighty VIC has some very good versions of some of the earlier video games.

For instance:

I think the VIC has the best version of Pac Man, Space Invaders, and Blitz, than any of those.

Would have to say that I think BBC "Snapper" by AcornSoft beats any Vic-20 version of PacMan hands down - even Jelly Monsters. Also there have been some recent additions to PacMan on the C64 that are VERY close to the arcade originals. (Also recent versions of Frogger, Scramble and Donkey Kong)

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic. ... f16334b796

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPLswEJ1OYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNyDjhznhbo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69OF2YQys40

Yeah, one you can use for 3K, 8K and 16K, that covers pretty much all commercial software from back in the day.

beamrider wrote: Would have to say that I think BBC "Snapper" by AcornSoft beats any Vic-20 version of PacMan hands down - even Jelly Monsters. Also there have been some recent additions to PacMan on the C64 that are VERY close to the arcade originals. (Also recent versions of Frogger, Scramble and Donkey Kong)

http://www.lemon64.com/forum/viewtopic. ... f16334b796

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPLswEJ1OYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNyDjhznhbo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69OF2YQys40

Unfortunately that C64 Pac-Man never saw the light of day. The other three arcade conversions are great. Donkey Kong is even a Z80 to 6502 port and plays exactly like the arcade original.

eightbitswide wrote:In the meantime, what do I need to run the games in the Gamebase20 collection? Will a simple memory expansion cart work for this?

Since you mentioned you have an SDIEC then yes you just need a memory expansion to run games > 3.5K.

If you can run to it, I would highly advise getting a full 35K expansion that you can just plug in and forget like the penultimate cart (also has the benefit of a good selection of cartridge ROMS built in as well as a built-in SD-IEC browser to make life easy).

Then just extract the nested .zip files in GB20 until you have either .PRG or .D64 and copy these to your SD card. There are a fair few games that have been made since the last GB20 revision so look at the subsequent releases on Denial.

You could also explore Jeff's games. All his games are coded in BASIC for unexpanded VIC and you'll be amazed at some of the things he's managed to achieve within those limitations:
http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/games/

English Invader wrote:You could also explore Jeff's games. All his games are coded in BASIC for unexpanded VIC and you'll be amazed at some of the things he's managed to achieve within those limitations:
http://sleepingelephant.com/denial/games/

These look great.. All I see are photos on this page. Is there a download link for these?

-8b