The Vintage Commodore VIC-20 Overview & Test!! 

my first computer! good memories!

This was my first computer as a kid. Had it on my bed for too long and it overheated and died. Found a blown fuse inside, replaced it. Was Back in business hahaha

Of all the computers I’ve owned and own the VIC is the one I have genuine affection for. It wasn’t my first computer but it is still my favourite. I think a large part of it was due to the look, the futuristic use of silver on the packaging and the VIC’s sound generation. I never get bored of the sounds the VIC pumps out.

Also my first computer and I loved it, I had a monitor, but might have just been a tv and I had the printer and everything

The Vic 20 was my first home computer as a teenager in the early 80s. It was not unique for it's games...you could play games on an Atari or go to the arcade. It was my introduction to programming in Basic. I thought it was fun to write very simple programs to convert to metric system.

Great machine, and lovely games. Keep up the good work!

This was the first computer my family owned, we had I believe a memory extender cartridge for the back and my Dad bought a collection of great games on cassettes. Good Times.

Ah.. Commodore VIC-20. Spent many hours with this back in the day, typing in programs and games by magazine and finding and fixing typos and saving to tape... Most painful was the 22-column screen, so many lines wrapped and hard to read, etc.

Garden Wars was an amazing game!

I had a Vic in the day. I also had the floppy drive from a C64 that worked great on it. When I got the C128 and got rid of the Vic, I kept that floppy drive. I had a lot of Vic games I transfered to floppy from tape.

Great video. These games look lame now but were state of the art in their day. I never had a VIC 20 as they were too expensive so had to make to with Sega SC3000 computer.

I need to dig my VIC 20 out of the loft and get it working again.

I was never into playing computer games, although my friends were. I'd rather program them.

A Composite cable for the video is a good idea and also getting the Penultimate 2 cartridge for the VIC-20 is also a good idea as well. Tony K.

in jupiter lander, your vertical velocity has to be in the yellow zone in the bar on the right

Nice get!! I have 2 of them and recommend getting the cable so that you get composite output. Why better than RF. Also look the the Pentium cartridge from The Future was 8 Bit. 200 games and apps plus diagnostics. It's the only thing you would ever need. Thanks for sharing

You've got a lot of retro Commodore gear to try out & play with, have fun! 😉

Rudys Retro Intel was suggesting getting a Composite cable for the video, and he is also suggesting getting the Penultimate 2 cartridge for the VIC-20 . He is right on both accounts! ;) Tony K.

PS: That White Commodore cover you have for the VIC-20 is an original Factory made Commodore Dust Cover....rather scarce today... Tony K. ;)

Oh, And one last thing that I couldn't help notice. Strangely, Your Vic-20 is missing all 4 of its black rubber feet! They go inside All 4 of the embossed circles on the bottom of the VIC. They are the same identical Black Rubber Feet that the C64 uses....and best of all...they are still being made! They are made by 3M. You can find them online.. Tony K.

My first computer was a VIC-20 and it came with the cassette drive. I don't remember having any games on cassette just on cartridge. I think I just used the cassette drive for saving my own programs. The cartridge games I remember are Radar Rat Race and a Whack-a-Mole type game (Mole Attack?). There was a space invaders game but can't remember what it was called, maybe it was Galaxian, as Gorf doesn't look familiar. I only had it for about 2-3 years before upgrading.

Yup! I still have my cassette drive for the C64 somewhere in my storage closet. You could eat some lunch and take a nap while you waited for some programs to finally load and start up! Good times! 😂😂👍👍 Oh...by the way, I am not sure about the Vic's power supply being dangerous to use like the C64 and 128's when they age. It DOES look exactly like the C64's from what I can see in the video! They have been known to completely fry the 64s and 128s by spiking them with too much voltage, I believe. Tons of warnings and videos about making your own new power supplies for them. I wanted to try out my C64 & my two 128s but even though the power supplies test good on them I am still a little reluctant to use them. The fuse on one of the 128 power supplies blew, but I don't remember why as it happened some time back, but I think it may have happened by me playing around inside one and not being careful enough. Takes a 1.5 amp fuse that I haven't replaced yet. Just keep an eye on yours and maybe use a multimeter to check the voltages on it to be safe! 👍👍

I just scored one of these off eBay. I will need a #9 key and spring. Also needs a psu and av cable. Hopefully someone can help me. I was just given some vintage computers and included 2 commodore disk drives.

You were right. That specific Commodore - "One to grow on" Consumer Division Price List guide is indeed a rare piece. at 19:02sec to 19:12sec Can you please scan all of its pages and upload it to the biggest archive website on the web.... Much Thanks! :o) Tony K. Commodore Collector/Restorer. Thanks again.

That IS the actual manual

Nice Eurostile keyboard, not very common.

Middle schoolers be complaining their school issued chromebooks are potatos. Nah man, THIS is a potato!

Promo*SM