Also, I was in the thick of the Atari/Commodore war and I always found the experience of using both machines to be similar (even though I never actually used a c64 during the war years). One thing us Atari guys always gave Commodore props for was their monitors. At least half of all Atari computer users had a Commodore monitor because they were so much better than any other RGB monitor available at the time. It was around 92-93 before I found one better than the 1702.
He was comparing it to the Atari 2600, which was really a toy. The specs of the VIC-20 were favorable to the 2600 but not to the 400/800 computers. The VIC-20 was originally conceived as a game system but was later changed to a computer because a lot of game system buyers then really wanted a cheap computer and the computer add ons for the game systems were horrible so the VIC-20 filled that demand.
I use to have one of these... Microsoft should require it's programmers to train on one to understand how to program without all the massive bloat
xadam2dudex 5 months ago
haha...for a second, I thought that was a C64!
thewii552 1 year ago
@debuglive
Also, I was in the thick of the Atari/Commodore war and I always found the experience of using both machines to be similar (even though I never actually used a c64 during the war years). One thing us Atari guys always gave Commodore props for was their monitors. At least half of all Atari computer users had a Commodore monitor because they were so much better than any other RGB monitor available at the time. It was around 92-93 before I found one better than the 1702.
gamewizard 1 year ago 2
@debuglive
He was comparing it to the Atari 2600, which was really a toy. The specs of the VIC-20 were favorable to the 2600 but not to the 400/800 computers. The VIC-20 was originally conceived as a game system but was later changed to a computer because a lot of game system buyers then really wanted a cheap computer and the computer add ons for the game systems were horrible so the VIC-20 filled that demand.
gamewizard 1 year ago
It could pull off the first part of the music -- it's a Bach two-part Invention in A minor. But that last chord it could not play.
Bachofile 2 years ago
Unfortunately the VIC-20 couldn't pull that off with only 3 voices (square wave) plus noise. But I still love that computer.
redmartian 2 years ago
Love the synth music!
jruddock 2 years ago 2
well good thing my brain never gets out of memóry :)
Hambidosvinet 2 years ago
sorry, typo -
It was 3583 bytes free (before I get pulled up on it by someone)!
6PBP6 2 years ago
I had a ViC 20 and it was great!
It had a 5k Memory and nearly 3.5 of that was free for programming!!! fantastic.
It use to say:
*** COMMODORE BASIC V2.0 ***
3581 BYTES FREE
READY.
:-)
6PBP6 2 years ago 2