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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

William Freakin' Shatner! :-)

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

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.

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

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

"VolksComputer" I love germany :D

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! :)

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!

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

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 .

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.

Who’s watching this in 2020 and loves the retro RU-vid production values

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!

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). :-)

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

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!

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!

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

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.

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!

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 :)

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!

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

My brother bought a Vic-20 from one of his college mates in 1984. He got a few tapes of "backed up games" with it, a cartridge for Raid on Fort Knox, and some programming tools. That machine was where I learned to code in Basic, which was cool, but the 8 MB RAM is a massive hinderance for doing anything significant. Commodore sold memory expansion cartridges for it, but they were stupid expensive, so don't expect to ever find one - the homebrew scene figured out how to make a custom 1 MB RAM board for it, which also allowed using multiple cartridges at the same time. But the Vic-20 is really more a novelty than anything else. It technically does support the same graphics quality as the C-64 (after all the memory size is the only significant difference between the two machines, nearly all the other components are the exact same), but it doesn't have the RAM to utilize it without memory expansion. And because the Vic-20 and C64 are so similar, the Vic can use all the peripherals developed for the C-64, like the floppy drives, printers, and all the weird stuff that was made for them to let them work as automation controllers and printer servers, and other jobs you wouldn't normally associate with a micro-computer from 1979

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

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

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.

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.

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! ;)

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.

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. :)

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.

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.

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

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".

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..

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

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.

The Shatner Maneuver… 🤣 At least I now have the pre-LGR take on which games I should try on my VIC-20!

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

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

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.

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...

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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...

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... :-)

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.

OMG 20 characters per line o.O

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!

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

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...

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

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

i never got the opportunity to experience using the Vic-20. unfortunately, when my stepfather bought it back then, the thing didn't work so he returned it. After awhile, we did get the C-64. thank goodness we did knowing now that the Vic-20 only had one joystick port!

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

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

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.

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

love the review this was my first computer

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.

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.

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

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.

Way back in the foggy reaches of the 80s when I was a nerdy teenager (as opposed to a nerdy old fart) there were radiostations that would broadcast games in the middle of the night. I'ld stay up and record them on tape and then not being able to sleep because I wanted to play them right away. Dammit. Yes. It was totally awesome.

impossible to imagine my life without the Vic 20

VIC-20 was my first Commodore computer i bought

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

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!

Great review, I love your humour!

my first computer, loved it

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

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.

When you grew up in the 80s and went to elementary at that time, these games, hands down, were the shit! They were fuckin cool and paved the foundation to what we have now..

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.

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

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

I owned a Vic-20 in about 1986 (Australia) Type LOAD and it was tape drive!

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