(Pre-LGR) Commodore VIC-20 Computer System Review

Ғылым және технология

Is the Vic-20 worth purchasing? A review from the perspective of a cheap, casual collector of video games. A quick run-down of the history, pros and cons of the games and system and whether or not it's worth your time.
Precursor to my Lazy Game Reviews

Пікірлер: 534

  • @ScavengerFX
    @ScavengerFX9 жыл бұрын

    I had a 64 once and for some reason my dad got rid of it when we moved. Later on, he bought us a Vic-20. Seriously. I went from a 64 to a Vic-20. It was traumatic. A few years later he got a Commodore 128-D and we became a loving family once again.

  • @williamhayden7711

    @williamhayden7711

    7 жыл бұрын

    LMAO, love it

  • @someguy2135

    @someguy2135

    5 жыл бұрын

    Your dad probably saw the Vic-20 in the store and just figured the color of the case was the only difference.

  • @raidrfrk

    @raidrfrk

    5 жыл бұрын

    Hahahaha mine was hooked to a black and white TV lol

  • @superx9619

    @superx9619

    3 жыл бұрын

    Man I just read this and actually felt how crappy that must of been as a kid.

  • @IrishCarney

    @IrishCarney

    3 жыл бұрын

    @@raidrfrk Buddy of mine had a TI-99/4A hooked up to a black and white TV

  • @jamescoffey5330
    @jamescoffey53309 жыл бұрын

    I bought one of these while working my first programming job (on a Univac). I was amazed. I took it home to show my parents, and stuck in "Radar Rat Race". My mother was fascinated. She wouldn't let me take the Vic back home. She sat there for hours playing Radar Rat Race. She reached a point where she could play from sunrise to bedtime and never lose. Finally, after a few months, I was talking to her and she said she was getting bored with it, and if there were any other games for it... A new Atari had been released that week. The next day she made my father drove 80 miles to get it for her.

  • @AllGamingStarred

    @AllGamingStarred

    4 жыл бұрын

    i imagine the dad was less than thrilled

  • @Crusader1089

    @Crusader1089

    3 жыл бұрын

    Such a nice story! Your mum was an og gamer

  • @marciomaiajr

    @marciomaiajr

    2 жыл бұрын

    That's a great story. One of my earliest memories from my childhood was of my mother playing River Raid and Enduro on the Atari. I remember as if it was yesterday.

  • @helipilot727
    @helipilot7278 жыл бұрын

    vic 20 was my first computer... began a lifelong computing career... now a professional programmer, 35 years later without college .. thanks Vic.

  • @anthonyc1515

    @anthonyc1515

    8 жыл бұрын

    Holy crap

  • @hypolyxa7207

    @hypolyxa7207

    7 жыл бұрын

    Awesome! :)

  • @paulgascoigne5343

    @paulgascoigne5343

    7 жыл бұрын

    flgliderpilot those were the days though, you could learn such a lot 'toying' with these computers, learning basic and eventually getting some sort of machine code experience too. I had a Vic 20 as my first also, then a Dragon, a ZX48k+, amiga 500, amiga 1200 then onto pc's. You can't forget your first though.

  • @Calvinatorzcraft

    @Calvinatorzcraft

    7 жыл бұрын

    Shatner has lied to you

  • @georgemorley1029

    @georgemorley1029

    6 жыл бұрын

    It was the first computer I remember using too.

  • @DieMasterMonkey
    @DieMasterMonkey6 жыл бұрын

    Vic-20 made me a programmer. Seriously, it *made* me code because I didn't have a tape drive or any carts. If I wanted to play a game, I a) typed it in b) debugged it and finally c) played it. If I wanted to play it again tomorrow I had to start all over again. I could probably still type-out space invaders from memory.

  • @Phenom98

    @Phenom98

    6 жыл бұрын

    Die, Master Monkey Wow. That's awesome. Nowadays I see moms impressed with their kids and seeing them as geniuses because they can open youtube on their iPhones or send a text, when today's stuff is more intuitive than ever. Back then it was a lot harder

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    6 жыл бұрын

    HAHA, I always laugh at how parents think their kids are smart for putting their fingers on pictures. Perhaps they are trying to deny to themselves that the most advanced thing they do in the course of a day, was objectively designed for a toddler. Die, Master Monkey That is impressive! I also saw one guy had modified a regular cassette recorder with a hex inverter on a piece of veroboard to make a homebrew datasette. I have the schematic in case I ever want to try it out for funzies. I was lucky enough to have a C=64 with a disk drive & datasette as my first computer, so I don't have any cool war stories especially from your perspective. I am picturing you coming home from school and typing in the game again from memory to play it lol. Incredible! My only wish is that I could have had more access to magazines for typing in games. I would have had so many more games that way.

  • @pixelrabbit261

    @pixelrabbit261

    4 жыл бұрын

    I feel for you bro, been there done that.

  • @raidrfrk

    @raidrfrk

    3 жыл бұрын

    Sentex error

  • @AllGamingStarred

    @AllGamingStarred

    6 ай бұрын

    syntax@@raidrfrk

  • @HerrBjork
    @HerrBjork8 жыл бұрын

    Watching vintage (by Internet standards) LGR reviewing vintage computing. Really interesting video!

  • @canalRetro269

    @canalRetro269

    3 ай бұрын

    I agree from 2024.

  • @HSMiyamoto
    @HSMiyamoto8 жыл бұрын

    Since the VIC only had 5K of memory, which is about 2/3 of a page, I wrote my own word processor in BASIC that loaded and saved its way through your document on the Dataset. It was slow but it actually worked.

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    7 жыл бұрын

    I always tell people about leveraging on the storage media as extra memory and cite this concept as a prime example... or reading out a string and instead of clumping it into an array and eating up memory...just drop it directly on the screen, or for comparisons, compare and drop the value and increment the loop. I want to do some really cool experiments with this with the pet since it can have 2 datasettes.

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    7 жыл бұрын

    To emphasize, when they ask how can you use a computer with 5k for anything useful?

  • @SpearM3064

    @SpearM3064

    6 жыл бұрын

    Actually, a "page" in computer terminology is 256 bytes. So 5K is actually 20 pages. (I'm just being pedantic. I know you were talking about pages of text. The fact that you were able to do that with the Datasette is impressive. It would've been much easier with the disk drive, of course.) If you think 5K is a serious limit, you should try the original ZX80. It had a *whopping* 1K of memory, and your program had to share that with the screen memory. And yet, people figured out ways (using Z80 assembly language) to squeeze credible versions of games like Chess and Frogger into that limited space.

  • @Doggeslife

    @Doggeslife

    5 жыл бұрын

    More like 3.5k. Got mine at Toy R Us in 1982 for $200. Learned BASIC on it and then the next year got an Apple ][e.

  • @lurkerrekrul
    @lurkerrekrul9 жыл бұрын

    "You're not going to see Mario on here." Well, unless you play Donkey Kong, which stars Mario... :)

  • @LGR

    @LGR

    9 жыл бұрын

    Except Donkey Kong stars *Jumpman* ;)

  • @lurkerrekrul

    @lurkerrekrul

    9 жыл бұрын

    Lazy Game Reviews That's just because Nintendo hadn't yet decided to make him their mascot. :)

  • @aprofondir

    @aprofondir

    8 жыл бұрын

    +Lazy Game Reviews Slam dunk!

  • @zlikurac4840

    @zlikurac4840

    8 жыл бұрын

    +Lazy Game Reviews hey are you going to review the macintosh portable just asking

  • @tbb033

    @tbb033

    6 жыл бұрын

    Donkey Kong stars Jumpman

  • @wildbilltexas
    @wildbilltexas10 жыл бұрын

    Nice review! The Vic-20 was my first computer and I still have it. I used to make copies of freinds Vic-20 and C=64 tapes with my stereo's dual cassette deck.

  • @yvonnerogers6429
    @yvonnerogers64296 жыл бұрын

    Wow, Clint! You've come a long way in eight years! Thank you for all the hard work you put into your channel.

  • @spitfeueranna
    @spitfeueranna9 жыл бұрын

    Deserves a look? The Vic-20 was the god damn Model T of the computer revolution. Period. End of story. You wouldn't have Linux, Android, or a thousand other software titles or hardware if it weren't for the millions of geeks who's first access to a hands on computer all the time was a Vic 20.

  • @williamhayden7711

    @williamhayden7711

    7 жыл бұрын

    Yup the VIC-20 was actually affordable. My best friends parents bought him the VIC-20 just to see if he liked it. A year more or less later they bought him an Apple IIc. Ugh how I envied him. I eventually got the money to buy my own Apple the IIe.

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    6 жыл бұрын

    I wouldn't give apple any credit there either... Apple was a single board computer with an S-100 price tag. Only morons bought it. A good configuration would have been a Heath H11A, or any S-100 with a dazzler card. It would run 5x faster, have a bigger instruction set, and better software. In the case of the H11A, it had a CISC architecture, and a high capacity 8" dual disk drive. It could do in one cycle what would take 10 cycles on other computers, and it was also 16 bit word addressable, and orthagonal . Ironically, it cost only a little more than an Apple...with the apple running an embedded controller as the CPU lol. Embarassing. The Vic 20 actually ran faster than an Apple II costing 5x as much due to it's more efficient floating point routines etc.

  • @crusader2.0_loading89

    @crusader2.0_loading89

    3 жыл бұрын

    So true

  • @robintst
    @robintst9 жыл бұрын

    Ouch, right in the nostalgia. First computer I ever experienced.

  • @spitfeueranna
    @spitfeueranna9 жыл бұрын

    BTW, we didn't buy a Vic because William Shatner said it was cool, we bought it because it was the only computer under $300 that had a real keyboard you could touch type on. Keyboards are taken for granted today, but back then having a real keyboard was a major innovation and made or broke your purchasing decision. So many 8 bit designs back then didn't realize how critical having a real keyboard was but Commodore did which is why they carried the day. The C= keyboard blew everything else out of the water. Hell, it even had graphics symbols and colors on it via a control function. That was the icing on an already gorgeous cake.

  • @dalekswartz2092

    @dalekswartz2092

    8 жыл бұрын

    I'm curious, what did computers use for input back in the day instead of keyboards?

  • @spitfeueranna

    @spitfeueranna

    8 жыл бұрын

    Dalek Swartz serial ports... rs-232... but if you wanted simple inputs, like simple switches... you could interface with the joysrick ports. I believe they had two.. 5 buttons per joysrltick... so 10 on off switch inputs... or two inputs for varable potentiometers.... (paddle input lines which just read voltage ranges)

  • @ThemildmanneredgamerBlogspot

    @ThemildmanneredgamerBlogspot

    6 жыл бұрын

    This is an extremely late reply, but a lot of teh other computers had either a membrane keyboard or little rubber buttons as the keyboard. An example of a membrane keyboard was the original Atari 400 and the Sinclair ZX sported the cheap rubber buttons.

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    6 жыл бұрын

    Ya, A lot of the computers available at the same time as the VIC-20 for around the same price had absolutely dismal keyboards. I think they only reason commodore didn't choose cheap membrane keys was the hard lesson they learned from the original commodore PET. You'll notice they never did another production model computer with poor quality keys. In fact, they had the best and most reliable keyboards! The Atari 400 was priced around the same ($324 vs $300) if you go back and look at magazine ads from the time. The commodore VIC-20 was just plain better, and you didn't have to buy a basic cartridge separately. It was simply built in. When you factor in that it had a much more reliable datasette drive, than the cassette recorder of the other brands, where you had to adjust the speed and tone with a screw driver(no joke)...and then pray that it worked. Whereas the VIC-20 can easily _still_ read tapes that are nearly 40 years old with no issues at all. It's no wonder this machine sold over 1 million units. By 1985 you could get one on clearance for under $100...In fact I have one in my collection with the receipt from K-Mart for $78!

  • @GarryGri

    @GarryGri

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@spitfeueranna They generally had membrane or rubber keyed keyboards, which were both horrible to use. Take the Sinclair systems for example. The ZX-81 had a membrane keyboard. The Spectrum had a rubber keyboard. Both were not good for programming, and useless for touch typing.

  • @SparcMan
    @SparcMan9 жыл бұрын

  • @williamhayden7711

    @williamhayden7711

    7 жыл бұрын

    Right and why would you? The 64 was superior in every way, but the VIC20 is certainly one of the best start computers of the day. Hands down.

  • @mnky75

    @mnky75

    3 жыл бұрын

    @SparcMan Same here, my cousin gave me his C64 as they upgraded to a Compaq DeskPro 386!

  • @eeejokesno
    @eeejokesno8 жыл бұрын

    My first computer was a VIC that my grandpa had. I recently re-bought a VIC, and a 64 together on craigslist each with the boxes and a monochrome display for an Apple II all together and working for $50. just need some cartridges, a controller, and a Datasette and I'm ready for some pure awesome

  • @AnimalFacts
    @AnimalFacts7 жыл бұрын

    William Freakin' Shatner! :-)

  • @Evolze
    @Evolze5 жыл бұрын

    My coworker is giving me a Commodore VIC-20! I'm super excited to have seen an LGR video on this.

  • @fuyingbro
    @fuyingbro15 жыл бұрын

    thank you for doing a review on this. this was my very first computer as a kid and i too loved tooth invaders i was actually thinking of picking this up to review it but you did a perfect job thank you

  • @williamhayden7711
    @williamhayden77117 жыл бұрын

    The VIC-20 was my best friends first computer. It was awesome. Back in those days a freak'n calculator was cool, but the VIC-20 was just awesome. He later go the Apple IIc and it was super awesome. These two influences really got me hot on computers and lead up to me buying my own computer (age 13 or there abouts) the Apple IIe, with 128K RAM, Duo Disk Drives and a Sanyo Color monitor. It was the awesomest of them all. I've ranted about it in various other LGR comment sections so I'll spare you, but this computer right here started it ALL!

  • @SteliosStylianou
    @SteliosStylianou13 жыл бұрын

    This is the most informative review I have seen on the Vic 20 I still have the old computer at home the machine was so easy to program software of any kind thanks for posting i enjoyed it.

  • @Mochrie99
    @Mochrie999 жыл бұрын

    Oh god, do I remember the VIC-20. I was like 7-8 years old when I had it. Bare bones, 3.5K of memory, no expanders, and a cassette drive. I spent lots of time typing out games/programs from Compute! magazines and books. Early computer geek, me!

  • @morphman86

    @morphman86

    9 жыл бұрын

    That is oddly similar to my childhood... except I was 7 in 1994. We were a bit... late... in our family.

  • @Tzunamii777

    @Tzunamii777

    8 жыл бұрын

    +Mochrie99 You spend 6+ hours typing in "Shutter Bug", you type Run, and get................... SYNTAX ERROR ---------------------- It didn't tell you Which line of code, out of hundreds, or what the error was. It could have been you typed a semicolon, instead of the needed colon, or a comma instead of a period. So you check line after line. Those were the days!

  • @morphman86

    @morphman86

    8 жыл бұрын

    John Owens Oh yes. And if you just started out, you probably didn't follow the x10 convention (start each line with a multiple of ten instead of single digits), and if one line needed to be added, you had to rewrite the entire code from that line on. Those were the days... (for those who never programmed BASIC on early home PC's, you had to manually write the code line number before each line of code)

  • @staceypacer
    @staceypacer13 жыл бұрын

    I am doing a research project for school on the VIC 20. Your video was so helpful....I think I am going to show a few minutes for our class presentation. Very insightful!

  • @fuzzycatfur2008
    @fuzzycatfur20088 жыл бұрын

    I really do prefer these older videos of yours sometimes, and thank for making great big playlists of your videos so I don't have to! :)

  • @JayArgonaut
    @JayArgonaut14 жыл бұрын

    Excellent review - I had the C64 back in the 80s but never knew that much about it's predecessor, the Vic 20. Yours is really pristine and well looked after - whoever you bought it from really took care of it :)

  • @pr0wl3r666
    @pr0wl3r6664 жыл бұрын

    As a kid I didn't even know about the VIC20. When I was 10 I had a C64, a friend also had one, another friend had a C16. Until 1992 I really enjoyed my C64, then I moved on to PCs. Around 1998 I acquired a huge computer lot; cases, motherboards, cpus, graphic cards, ... which I used to build computers and sell them again. In the lot there was also a VC20 (yes the German one), at the time I had no use for it so it ended up in the attic. Last year I came across it again, took it down from the attic, bought an AV-cable, an aftermarket PSU (much safer!) and a LCD CCTV monitor (because it has about every connection you would possibly need!). I also ended up buying a game cartridge: River Rescue. I still had an old The Arcade joystick. Later I also bought a cartridge port expander; makes using cartridges easier. That V(I)C20 quickly stole my heart; although it's quite limited, it's still quite capable! If needed you can always expand it's memory with (a) cartridge(s). :-)

  • @dagda825
    @dagda82513 жыл бұрын

    That was awesome! Vic-20 was my first computer and sparked my obsession with computers and computer science. Thanks man!

  • @Yewbzee
    @Yewbzee6 жыл бұрын

    Great video, takes me back to my youth when I first got one of these in the early 80s with a massive 3.5k of ram.

  • @ducklandwikeno
    @ducklandwikeno13 жыл бұрын

    On my vic-20 I use to write programs from a magazine . I wrote the game crazy climber , That game was very cool game to play back then . Back in the day it was very common to find game programs in a magazine . I guess you can find the on programming magazine's . I loved my vic-20 , but I wanted to own the c64 back then it was 600 dollars .I also had the tape recorder for the programs . I love that the internet is around now and we have access to upgrade to the vic-20 and c64 .

  • @AxelWerner
    @AxelWerner7 жыл бұрын

    oh memories!!! I once started on a Commodore VC20 and soon switched to C64, since the VC20 somehow died after few months. Both been IDEAL and affordable Machines to begin the whole computer madness. i still love my C64 i once had, and it breaks my heart that i had to give it away in the early 2000s.

  • @eatonjb
    @eatonjb3 жыл бұрын

    I really think there is a time for an update. been watching you for some time now, I think it's time to go re-retro again.

  • @tl1024
    @tl10244 жыл бұрын

    Holy LGR 2009! Super awesome! I had a C64 & a Vic-20, man I hated that tape drive! Thanks for not deleting the old stuff because its "not cool enough". It is "cool".

  • @LGR

    @LGR

    4 жыл бұрын

    These videos are practically vintage themselves now!

  • @tl1024

    @tl1024

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@LGR that floppy drive was surprisingly heavy, I remember. And I had that "official monitor" too. The color stripes on all the equipment was the mark of "genuine parts". L^r "$",8,2

  • @hablom1977
    @hablom19779 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for making this video, I don't own a VIC-20 but my friend had one when we were kids. We played lots of strange games with it..

  • @Schwammi95
    @Schwammi958 жыл бұрын

    "VolksComputer" I love germany :D

  • @Knochenbrigade

    @Knochenbrigade

    6 жыл бұрын

    Yep. Everything for the people.

  • @jeffh8803

    @jeffh8803

    5 жыл бұрын

    Better than the Fuck 20

  • @merouby

    @merouby

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@jeffh8803 lol

  • @bruhmaster4207

    @bruhmaster4207

    3 жыл бұрын

    Lol

  • @PhauxTheFox
    @PhauxTheFox6 жыл бұрын

    I just got one off eBay, hasn't come in yet, very excited. VIC-20, 4 Atari joysticks, 4 third party joysticks, 1541, a four switch Atari 2600, some cords, and an Atari "Game Center"(box that holds the Atari and some games), for $52 after shipping. All untested and possibly missing some cords. But overall i think that's a good haul for what I spent, here's hoping it all works!

  • @Denis-fp7ku

    @Denis-fp7ku

    6 жыл бұрын

    Phaux Redtail Give us an update please. Was it worth it?

  • @PhauxTheFox

    @PhauxTheFox

    6 жыл бұрын

    Missing the video cable for the VIC and power for the Atari, the person packed it like a doof so one item got broken, still usable but was annoying. Haven't had time/budget to get what I need sadly.

  • @CRAZYHORSE19682003
    @CRAZYHORSE196820038 жыл бұрын

    I love your videos, I have been binge watching them. I grew up at the beginning of the computer revolution. My first PC was an Atari 800. If you have never experienced the agony of a tape drive to load programs or a 300 baud modem to connect to a BBS you don't know what your missing lol.

  • @zfoxfire

    @zfoxfire

    8 жыл бұрын

    not sure if the tape load time was that worse than than the load time on my mac 512 when i had to do 40+ floppy disk swaps to switch between the desktop and an application

  • @flounder31
    @flounder318 жыл бұрын

    Any plans to LGR the TI-99/4A? I've seen one (in original box!) lurking on a shelf in your other videos. Amazingly, after TI dumped the 99, you were able to by one (as my parents did for me at the urging of my 4th grade teacher,) for $79.99 from a catalog mailorder house. (There were actually 2 big ones - Tenex and Triton.) Anyway, I had the TI, a couple of buddies had TRaSh-80s, and the coolest among us had a C-64. Ahh, the good old days! I still have my (original, complete with all the stuff) Zork I-III games, on 5.25 for the 99/4A. Wish I'd have kept the rest of that great old clunker!

  • @BryonLape

    @BryonLape

    8 жыл бұрын

    An early venture into 16-bit computing, but with a crappy keyboard.

  • @djglxxii
    @djglxxii12 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for the blast from the past! The VIC-20 was my first computer and helped cut my teeth in BASIC programming. Wow, 3.5K of RAM. Amazing anything meaningful could be written in such a limited space.

  • @sci3ntologist
    @sci3ntologist10 жыл бұрын

    We have the PET models up here in Canada, not the cmb. These vintage system reviews are great! I hope to see more.

  • @AllGamingStarred

    @AllGamingStarred

    6 ай бұрын

    CBM but you were close

  • @ArcadeDude44
    @ArcadeDude4410 жыл бұрын

    Awesome, I never wanted one of these back in the day (but i sure loved my C64!), but I now strangely am interested in one. Being a member of the Fresno Commodore Users Group doesn't hurt, I guess...

  • @CarlYorysh
    @CarlYorysh11 жыл бұрын

    no idea why, but that ding at the end made me laugh out loud really loud. Another great and entertaining video.

  • @peterhagan8454
    @peterhagan84543 жыл бұрын

    love the review this was my first computer

  • @bandgeekak87
    @bandgeekak8711 жыл бұрын

    I got my VIC-20 from my parent's basement complete with datapack. My uncle and aunt had various books with the BASIC codes for games. Sometimes it's a good thing to have relatives that have backgrounds in programming. Yay!

  • @classic_adventure
    @classic_adventure7 жыл бұрын

    excellent video! thanks. got myself a VIC-20 now and I'm pretty impressed ;-) #8bitsRule

  • @TheCerealHobbyist
    @TheCerealHobbyist4 жыл бұрын

    Going back and watching some of the first LGR videos. Clint - I'm here from the future. First - You will NOT believe who is president now. Second - Your videos continue to rock a decade later.

  • @durrcodurr
    @durrcodurr8 жыл бұрын

    I just remembered something while watching this video: I think there was a VC-10 model announced in Germany, not sure if it was actually shipped, but I recall seeing it in a catalog as a kid. It was black with a membrane keyboard, just like the Atari 400 differed from the Atari 800. -- I got a VIC-20 (VC-20) during X-Mas 1982. It's still one of my most favorite 8-bit computers. Strangely, I still like it better than the C-64, but perhaps only b/c I programmed the s**t out of it! ;)

  • @peterlamont647

    @peterlamont647

    7 жыл бұрын

    Heh, would be fun if the vic 10 had a 12 column screen. It was the best computer for money value of the era though, I love mine!

  • @clifhaley5150
    @clifhaley515015 жыл бұрын

    Thank you for this :) The VIC-20 was my first computer ever...got it when I was 10.

  • @brettcomic
    @brettcomic13 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for posting this! You had me laughing several times. It brought back memories of those early days of the "home computer".

  • @krisreddish3066
    @krisreddish30668 жыл бұрын

    There was a controller I miss that was 3rd party, the semi famous Wico ErgoStic with that that off creme color, and each little movement had a click. I think it had well over 10k micro switches though I never opened it up and counted them. The body had a soft rubberized coating. The stick was tiny, and black, the one button was very good as far as actuation time goes, or felt very responsive to me as a young teen. Though it worked with a Vic-20, I put it to great use on a C64. It even worked on the older 2600s. That was a good thing, because it eliminated the need to buy 3 joysticks a year to account for how fast I wore them out. That little white stick when the rubber falls off is all ouch and no joy, and it happened to my 2600 sticks quite frequently.

  • @Cliff_Dixon_42
    @Cliff_Dixon_427 жыл бұрын

    The two games I remember the most on my old VIC 20 were Gorf (spotted that cartridge in the video) and Lunar Lander.

  • @Delmoko
    @Delmoko14 жыл бұрын

    Thanks dude! Great bits! Tell me more about downloading games and putting them onto a cassette and playing them back on the Vic 20!

  • @someperson7
    @someperson72 жыл бұрын

    I was previously unaware of the VIC-1001, pretty cool

  • @RetroGadgetMan
    @RetroGadgetMan3 жыл бұрын

    Great review, I love your humour!

  • @spacecaptain87
    @spacecaptain873 жыл бұрын

    Who’s watching this in 2020 and loves the retro KZread production values

  • @ST2008X
    @ST2008X5 жыл бұрын

    I love my Commodore Vic-20 too! Paid 30$ for it also.....initially it did not seem worth it......due to some problems with the RF modulator....and well having no game cartridges....my parents discouraged me from buying games for it because of the RF modulation problems...they thought it was junk.....still, I now have a composite cable from China for my Vic-20, it’s been perfect ever since....I paid 10$ for each of my Vic-20 games I believe.....two in a pack at a junk store, the other at a retro game/collectibles store....I love Omega Race! Played it tonight.....it’s great...

  • @SuperRealaussie
    @SuperRealaussie9 жыл бұрын

    my first computer, loved it

  • @1857classic
    @1857classic12 жыл бұрын

    Vic 20 was our first computer, I loved it, my Dad bought me a book that had hundreds of games in BASIC that had to be programed in. It was a bit tedious but still had loads of fun with it.

  • @AMOKIAN
    @AMOKIAN15 жыл бұрын

    I used to have a VIC 20 & 64 years ago, I have always liked the games and especially the sounds..I have been doing alot of 8bit music and beats and thought about getting some sound from a Vic 20. I will keep you posted. Thanks for the response.

  • @IrishCarney
    @IrishCarney3 жыл бұрын

    When I was a kid a friend had an Odyssey2 and a VIC-20. I still remember playing "Congo Bongo" on the VIC. Not too bad

  • @reinatycoon3644
    @reinatycoon36443 ай бұрын

    I'll say it again. I love your current videos but there is something really nostalgic about your older stuff. You put so much personality and vibes to your earlier stuff. One of the only YTers that kept or kinda tries to keep their og vibe is AVGN for some reason. Granted I know everyone changes with time and some people are ashamed of their earlier works sadly.

  • @Losaru
    @Losaru9 жыл бұрын

    We had both the Vic-20 and a C64 at home at one point. Mom was a nut for Tetris on the Vic-20 while my sister and I used to play Giana Sisters almost every day.

  • @JeffBeresford
    @JeffBeresford10 жыл бұрын

    Bob Yannes essentially designed this machine. He developed the prototype in his bedroom that was used as the basis, using the VIC chip (which is where it gets it's name) that was earlier developed by Commodore but was unused. The 20 comes from the number of lines it can display. They wanted 80 lines but had issues with RAM speeds and overheating. He then went on to design the mighty SID chip in the C64. Genius.

  • @richard1113
    @richard111312 жыл бұрын

    omg... where did 9... i mean, 10 minutes go? I was mesmerized for real. nice video!

  • @petermuller608
    @petermuller6086 ай бұрын

    Failure analysis is _much_ more informative than "i made it" stories. Thank you!

  • @DarrenFlinders
    @DarrenFlinders12 жыл бұрын

    Thanks for the info, I forgot about the C16, I remember now, for some reason I thought it was based on the Vic 20, thanks for putting me right :-)

  • @georgemorley1029
    @georgemorley10296 жыл бұрын

    The first computer I remember using. I wrote programmes from a book of games on Christmas Day in 1984 (I think it was 1984) with my dad. The cassette player was kicking around in the house for years after we got rid of it. Then I think we went to a BBC B microcomputer after that. That was mint. It had nightlore! Isometric gaming in that age was vivid. I was a bit too young to appreciate elite though.

  • @teknifix
    @teknifix12 жыл бұрын

    I remember being 4 years old and I used our VIC20 to write the following program: 10 PRINT "YOU BROKE THE BANK" 20 GOTO 10. I was so proud of myself. :)

  • @carlcouture1023
    @carlcouture10235 жыл бұрын

    I can't believe you've been doing reviews for 10 years.

  • @ianofliverpool7701
    @ianofliverpool77013 жыл бұрын

    Me and my mate used to spend hours typing out the lines of Basic copying from the computer magazines of the time to get a game but once finished and we pressed Run up would pop the first of many syntax errors to keep us busy for more hours all to chase a green dot around the screen with our amazing proton red dot.

  • @HelloMyNamesNino
    @HelloMyNamesNino7 жыл бұрын

    6:26 what shall I do now? Fart Don't know how to "fart" something

  • @johnsmith-kz2jz
    @johnsmith-kz2jz12 жыл бұрын

    avenger was the first game i ever played as a kid back in 1981 on the VIC 20 from my uncle.from this day on i was into computer games.this virus really never left my body

  • @UncleFeedle
    @UncleFeedle13 жыл бұрын

    I had no idea the VIC-20 had a cartridge slot. Years later and I'm still finding out stuff about these old machines!

  • @ZeroMass
    @ZeroMass11 жыл бұрын

    The PET was still PET in Canada. We had them in school, my first home PC was the VIC 20. Used to type in the game programs from the back of the book lol Took forever if my tape didnt record it properly! Man Commodore sure taught my generation patience. : D

  • @WraithTDK
    @WraithTDK6 жыл бұрын

    This was the first computer I ever owned. Got it from a yard sale in in 1985. I think I still have some of the tapes.

  • @glenwoofit
    @glenwoofit15 жыл бұрын

    Great Vid, I had a Vic 20 i loved to program it more than play games, The keyboard was so much better than the Spectrum 16 or 48

  • @Xenoyer
    @Xenoyer Жыл бұрын

    I used to print out biocompatibility on a dot-matrix printer for people at work. They were happy to pay me $3 for it. The Vic-20 was super cool!

  • @jayanxiety
    @jayanxiety14 жыл бұрын

    I had a Vic20 that I got as a present for being in my uncle's wedding party. It was purchased at a time when it was on the wane (1984) due to the C-64. I had lots of fun playing all those cartridges and typing up programs from computer books. It was very limited, but I spent hours manipulating programs, adding my own text and such. The text on the screen was so huge that the computer was even used later on for home video credits! Lots of fun, but I still hoped for a C-64!

  • @DrunkenGuitarGuy
    @DrunkenGuitarGuy3 жыл бұрын

    saved up my paper route money for one of these when i was a kid!

  • @Jyval
    @Jyval8 жыл бұрын

    Search for "Robotic Liberation by PWP (VIC-20)" if you want to hear an amazing chiptune for the vic. :)

  • @sundown798
    @sundown79813 жыл бұрын

    I remember smashing my tape drive when I was a kid grrr. Thanks for keepin the machines alive :)

  • @walterchapman2094
    @walterchapman20949 жыл бұрын

    I'm amazed at some of the homebrews for this computer. The computer that replaced this (C-16/plus4) should have been compatible with it.

  • @be236
    @be2366 жыл бұрын

    Yeah, VIC-20 was one of my first computers and started me into the computer field.. Heh.. I still have a VIC-20 in the garage. If I get some time, I'd love to set it up and play around with it...

  • @djGreenALERT
    @djGreenALERT4 жыл бұрын

    I still have mine. The trick to loading cartridges easy is to support the console with your knees and attach both ends of the cartridge with equal pressure!

  • @NEScapades
    @NEScapades13 жыл бұрын

    Enjoyed the review. I still play the ole VIC once in a while and it's still great fun. Just curious which system you like more? the V20 or C64

  • @HazyJ28
    @HazyJ286 жыл бұрын

    I love that Warez easter egg. I used warez-bb for the longest but now torrents serve well

  • @canecreek00
    @canecreek0013 жыл бұрын

    where did you get the "commodore 64" t-shirt ? , ive found a few on the net with the same logo however they don't have the cap sleeves which i prefer.

  • @merouby
    @merouby4 жыл бұрын

    Agreed 100% awesome review

  • @perrin26
    @perrin2614 жыл бұрын

    This was the first computer that I had, I had the tape drive. I remember programming games using the poke command. Before the tape drive, you had to pray the power didn't go out while you were programming a game to play, and it took a while to make a game. A lot of typing... also Syntax Error, won't ever forget that one. I don't think anything of my Vic 20 exists anywhere, but someday I may collect one for old time sake.Vic 20 - XBOX 360, 30 years of gaming experience.

  • @williamjoyce6989
    @williamjoyce69896 жыл бұрын

    Picking up a Commodore 64 and Vic 20 tomorrow, good times

  • @andrewdupuis1151
    @andrewdupuis11518 жыл бұрын

    VIC-20 was my first Commodore computer i bought

  • @st333n
    @st333n7 жыл бұрын

    lost my shit when i saw you drop one controller then a bunch more then "and this"

  • @michaelolz

    @michaelolz

    6 жыл бұрын

    st33n just...try stuff.

  • @gamewizard7562
    @gamewizard756213 жыл бұрын

    This was my first computer. Commodore originally intended to make a video game system to compete with the Atari 2600 but they turned it into a computer during the development cycle because they thought it would appeal better to parents than a system that just played games. They also had a glut of low density memory chips on hand which was why the VIC-20 came with so little memory.

  • @wxcferdts
    @wxcferdtsАй бұрын

    Thanks to YT's recent (and just!!!) decision to reintroduce 'sorting by apperance date', I was watching Clint's first tries on YT, and I'm pleasantly surprised: his style is immediately recognisable, as are his wit and tomfoolery. The odd joke, the odd comment, the Clinty-approach to things is already there, and it's really only the sound and visual quality that's lacking (understandably!). I hope he 'keeps doing the Shatner' for a long time, as his channel provides not only knowledge, but a lot of homely and quite intoxicating fun.

  • @mopspear
    @mopspear3 жыл бұрын

    It's kind of weird seeing a video from KZreadr I watch all the time from 12 years ago.

  • @finalbossoftheinternet6360
    @finalbossoftheinternet636011 жыл бұрын

    I bought a Battle Zone cart new-in-box, with shrink-wrap, a couple years ago. I gave in to the urge to play it, but it's still complete and in like-new condition.

  • @TahreyUK
    @TahreyUK11 жыл бұрын

    One reason for collecting the VIC ... it's the machine that really broke the home market for CBM and both allowed them the money to make the C64 and made it so people trusted them as a brand when it launched (they also reused some of its chips IIRC)... It's also the machine that a surprising number of 80s/90s (and up-to-present-day) coding legends cut their teeth on. For starters, one of the primo VIC20 versions of Gridrunner was by a certain legendary code-hippie called Jeff Minter... :-)

  • @jnewbon00
    @jnewbon0012 жыл бұрын

    Awsome review i remember snapping finger nails trying to remove them damn cartridges ! and the troubles getting um in too

  • @TheWhoaDude
    @TheWhoaDude12 жыл бұрын

    I am about to buy one of these so I needed to know how to easily transfer the .TAP files like that. So Thank you my good sir. My biggest regret is that it can not play (as far as I know) INFOCOM games but I found a decent tracker for it :D

  • @johneygd
    @johneygd5 ай бұрын

    The vic20 is a must have in case you don’t have a C64.

  • @Eddthompson
    @Eddthompson4 жыл бұрын

    Got one at Kmart for $99 when I was a kid. Dad bought it because he wanted me to learn programming. He built a really cool desk for it. He taught himself to code on it. Then a year later my friend got a C64 and I realized that the VIC was just a poor man's C64. I liked it and loved the games. But I think I liked the Timex sinclair that a teacher gave to me in highschool better. Funner to code and I could do more.

  • @LightTheUnicorn
    @LightTheUnicorn12 жыл бұрын

    I have a VC-20 sitting right here, can have a lot of fun with these things :P

  • @summer20105707
    @summer2010570714 жыл бұрын

    I loved the Vic. The only complaint was it's limited memory. But if you had some cash you could buy memory expansion for it. It is a breeze to program and repair though.

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