What color is the border on your (NTSC) VIC-20?

[DistantStar001]

So this is a bit of a curiosity that emerged from my previous post, and I was hoping that some of you could shed some light. I presently own two NTSC VIC-20's, both of which display a light blue or cyan border upon bootup. Not the typical teal color you see on VICE. I have also been piecing together a third. I have the motherboard and purchased a new-old-stock VIC chip for it. I already had a processor, so I transplanted the ROMs from one of the other machines to see if the board would boot, which it did. However, unlike my other computers, the border color was teal.

I tried adjusting the pots on one of the blu/cyan machines to see if I could get the expected teal border with no luck. So I swapped the VICS, and low and behold, the blue/cyan VIC turned teal. Later I turned to adjusting the tint on my TV. Shifting all the way to red gave me a teal border on a blue/cyan VIC, shifting all the way to green made the teal VIC go blue.

All three motherboards are of the two-prong variety, with three pots in the video box. The first is brightness, the second is supposed to be contrast (but seems to have no effect on any of my boards), and the third is sealed in place with wax or paint, but appears to control color saturation. None of these has any effect on the tint. So here I am, with three VIC chips, two of which produce a very different color than the third? My question is why?

Some theories:

1) Age and or usage has caused degradation to the chips, resulting in the blue/cyan border. This is possible. As I said, the VIC chip I purchased is a new-old-stock. It's never been inside a machine before. However, at least one of my VIC-20's was in near pristine condition and looks to be hardly used. Also, when comparing the date codes, two of the three VIC chips were made in the same year (1982). The blue/cyan was made in the 32nd week, the teal one was made in the 50th. So, as those two chips were made so close to each other, it would seem to rule out age alone as a factor. Usage is still a possibility, but that would mean that newer VIC's in more heavily used machines would have seen a gradual color shift over time.

2) The other (and in my opinion, stronger) possibility is that Commodore/MOS Tech made a refinement to the design or manufacture of the 6560 VIC chip at some point between the 32nd and 50th week of 1982 resulting in the new/more common teal color.

So I put it out there. Has anyone else noticed this? What color is your VIC-20 border? And how old is your VIC?

This really has me scratching my head here, and my current sample size (3) is less than comprehensive.

[r.cade]

Can you take photos? Descriptions of color are difficult, so I would not know what difference you are describing. For example, for me, VICE output is not green in any way.

[chysn]

When I was ten years old, upon learning the colors available with CTRL 1~8, I did not know what "cyan" was. It's simply a color that I'd never heard of. On my TV, it looked light blue, so I spent pretty much all of my life thinking that cyan is light blue, what I thought of as "sky blue." Over the years, I had a lot of TVs and several (like six) NTSC VIC-20s, and the color of the cyan was consistent, or at least consistent enough not to challenge my perception of cyan as "another word for sky blue."

It wasn't until firing up VICE for the first time that my idea of cyan was overthrown. "This is not cyan!" I thought to myself. So I Googled cyan to find out that it's exactly what VICE says it is, closer to light teal than sky blue.

When I got my CR (NTSC) VIC-20 about a year ago, and set the controls on my 1702 to their detented positions, the border looks just like VICE. The sky blue of my childhood can be achieved by slightly increasing TINT, but this comes at the expense of an attractive purple.

All this is to say that I suspect there were variations over time. My current VIC-20 is the only CR VIC I've owned. I never had a 1702 when I was a kid, only TVs. But the difference between cyan and cerulean is the tiniest of knob flicks, and we can never trust our memories.

[Noizer]

Living in PAL land, I never had troubles to recognize which color cyan is. Italian says „blu verde“ to. So it’s either blue nor green. It’s a beautiful color at all, fitting much well to our lovely vic20

[DistantStar001]

Can you take photos? Descriptions of color are difficult, so I would not know what difference you are describing. For example, for me, VICE output is not green in any way.

Sorry, I forgot. Also, my iPad seems to hate my CRT. I'll try to take some better pictures on an LCD. Also, maybe turquoise is a better term?

When I was ten years old, upon learning the colors available with CTRL 1~8, I did not know what "cyan" was. It's simply a color that I'd never heard of. On my TV, it looked light blue, so I spent pretty much all of my life thinking that cyan is light blue, what I thought of as "sky blue." Over the years, I had a lot of TVs and several (like six) NTSC VIC-20s, and the color of the cyan was consistent, or at least consistent enough not to challenge my perception of cyan as "another word for sky blue."

When I got my CR (NTSC) VIC-20 about a year ago, and set the controls on my 1702 to their detented positions, the border looks just like VICE. The sky blue of my childhood can be achieved by slightly increasing TINT, but this comes at the expense of an attractive purple.

All this is to say that I suspect there were variations over time. My current VIC-20 is the only CR VIC I've owned. I never had a 1702 when I was a kid, only TVs. But the difference between cyan and cerulean is the tiniest of knob flicks, and we can never trust our memories.

Thanks for this! You're the first to convey a similar experience to what I'm seeing. The fact that your current VIC-20 is a CR supports my change in manufacturing theory since the VIC in it was likely manufactured after 1982.

Update: New Photos. My iPad likes my LCD better.

The camera seems to make the blue text more vibrant in the second photo, but it looks the same in person.

[mathom]

Granted that memories can be slippery and old color tv's were rather notorious for being difficult to get the colors correct, I remember my first VIC (a very early model) as having a distinct tint of green(ish) to the border. For what that is worth.

EDIT: (should I also mention I have some colorblindness? )

[r.cade]

Mine has always been like your last photo, with a green tint. That's why I was confused by your question. CYAN is not like teal - it has more blue in it than teal, but there is green in it.

[DistantStar001]

Granted that memories can be slippery and old color tv's were rather notorious for being difficult to get the colors correct, I remember my first VIC (a very early model) as having a distinct tint of green(ish) to the border. For what that is worth.

EDIT: (should I also mention I have some colorblindness? )

Do you recall what year you bought your first VIC? This could be helpful, as I've been operating under the assumption that there was a change in manufacture somewhere in 1982. If your VIC predates that, then it's possible that the color difference was a marker of the manufacturing facility?

Mine has always been like your last photo, with a green tint. That's why I was confused by your question. CYAN is not like teal - it has more blue in it than teal, but there is green in it.

Sorry for the confusion. Up to this point, the only times I've seen the color cyan labeled was on printer ink cartridges. Very much the light blue color seen on the top screen as opposed to the (I'll say) "turquoise" color of the bottom.

[mathom]

Granted that memories can be slippery and old color tv's were rather notorious for being difficult to get the colors correct, I remember my first VIC (a very early model) as having a distinct tint of green(ish) to the border. For what that is worth.

EDIT: (should I also mention I have some colorblindness? )

Do you recall what year you bought your first VIC? This could be helpful, as I've been operating under the assumption that there was a change in manufacture somewhere in 1982. If your VIC predates that, then it's possible that the color difference was a marker of the manufacturing facility?

I bought my VIC pretty early on I think. I paid the original full price for it. It had the two prong power supply and came in the plain blue and white box like this one:

20191201_105457.jpg (71.78 KiB) Viewed 763 times

I still have the manual that came with it and it has the blue cover like the one in the picture and is apparently a first edition since it doesn't have any editions or printings indicated inside the front cover. The copyright date is 1981.

I don't know how closely that might date it but I hope it helps.