The Commodore VIC-20
by Ian Matthews of Commodore.ca March 13, 2003
with proofing assistance from
Brent Santin
Last Revised Dec 30 2018
NOTE: Your are in the TEXT ONLY version of our site; click HERE to go to our full VIC-20 page
The VIC-20 debuted in June of 1980 at the Computer
Electronics Show but its development started almost by accident two years
earlier. Commodore engineered and manufactured the “Video Interface Chip
6560” or VIC1 for the video game market which was beginning to collapse.
After not being able to sell the chip to other companies for their
consoles, Commodore developed the VIC-20 as an inexpensive home computer
with colour.
MOS Technology engineers Robert Yannes, Al Charpentier
and Charles Winterble started with a design project called the TOI (The
Other Intellect) from the legendary Chuck Peddle and Bill Seiler. It was
apparent the TOI was not going to get to market because it required
expensive static RAM chips and an 80 column display which was just not
financially practical at the time. Yannes, Charpentier and Winterble
showed their cost reduced version of the TOI to CEO Jack Tramiel in the
fall of 1979 and he immediately green lighted it.
Jack knew that
Apple was a small player but their newly released Apple II (which used the
Commodore 6502 CPU) was gaining on them. He insisted the new low cost home
computer be ready to demonstrate at the Consumer Electronics Show in
January 1980. The pressure was on the three MOS engineers worked 7 days a
week on “Project Vixen” day and night to make it happen.
What they
had shown Jack was not even at the alpha stage and could not have been
practically manufactured. That “Vixen” demonstrator was a little more than
a concept computer kludged together with few parts that could reasonably
produced in volume. Everything had to be reworked and massively cost
reduced to meet Jack’s expectations. Worse, the rest of the company didn’t
take them seriously:
We couldn’t get any cooperation from the rest
of the company who thought we were jokers because we were working late,
about an hour after everyone else had left the building. We’d swipe
whatever equipment we needed to get our jobs done. There was no other way
to get the work done! – Neil Harris (one of the VIC-20 developers)
Jack Tramiel told his engineers they could only use 1K chips in the new
machine because Commodore had huge inventory they were unable to use in
other products. After much internal debate the VIC-20 was given 5.5K of
RAM, 2K of which was used by the Basic Operating System.
To do any
meaningful development in such a small area required the use of machine
language, which is the most rudimentary first generation computer language
that carries almost no overhead. Unfortunately 3.5K is not even large
enough to load a machine language compiler. So developers were often
forced to write machine code by hand. Speaking from experience, I can tell
you that is a extremely time consuming.
The home computer
competitors were the Apple II, Atari 400 and to a lesser degree the Radio
Shack TRS-80. Those had dedicated sound and graphics features but they
were much more expensive. Jack wanted cheap and Jack was seldom wrong
about the market. To get around the hardware limits, the software
engineers used clever commands to “Peek” and “Poke” sounds and graphics.
Cost was not the VIC’s only virtue. The VIC-20 would appear to have
sharper images on the screen that its competitors because it used a
composite connection to a computer monitor. The Atari and TRS-80 used an
old (from the 1950’s!) RF modulator adapter to connect to both TV’s and
monitors. The VIC would ship with a free RF modulator that could be used
to connect it to a TV too, but Commodore demonstrated the VIC with higher
quality monitors.
Remember that Commodore had negotiated a crazy
deal with the fledgling Micro-Soft Corporation which allowed Commodore to
pay a single flat fee in 1977 which allowed them to use an unlimited
number of copies of Micro-Soft Basic as an Operating System. This meant
there was never a question inside Commodore what OS they were going to
use. Commodore Basic was nothing more than Micro-Soft Basic. That deal
made virtually no money for Microsoft but it accidentally provided
Microsoft with legitimacy and product scale which we know today is so
critical to becoming a standard that developers flock to.
The
question became which version of Commodore Basic to install in the VIC. It
was decided that the (very) old Commodore Basic 2.0 from the original PET
2001 days would be best because it had fewer features (and time was tight,
so less was better). Jack also liked the idea that Commodore could upsell
consumers with an add-on plug-in cartridge that contained extra commands
for extra money at some point in the future.
Between early 1981,
when the VIC actually hit store shelves, and the first few months of 1985,
when the last VIC production line was shut down, it had sold more than 2.5
million units. It had an very impressive peak daily production of 9000
units and was the worlds first computer to sell more than 1 million units.
Commodore knew they needed software to kick off the VIC-20 so they
produced 5 adventure games a user would interact with by typing text
commands. They made $1.5M ($3.1M in 2018 dollars) from those 5 cartridges
alone.Commodore also quickly released several memory expansion cartridges
(3K, 8K, and 16K) and other companies produced even large 32K and 64K
cartridges. If you look at the photo gallery at the end of this page, you
will find an advert for a gigantic 64K memory expander made by Advanced
Processor Systems.
There are reports that during its development it
was called the MicroPET and there is a lot of debate over the origins of
the “20” portion of the VIC-20 name. We have spoken to the the Commodore
executive responsible for the VIC’s development, and the author of The
Home Computer Wars, Michael Tomczyk, and he stated repeatedly that he
choose the name simply because he thought it “sounded good”.
Some
sites incorrectly report that the VIC was software compatible with PET but
it really was not. Because the VIC and the PET use completely different
memory maps, PEEK and POKE commands were not compatible and because the
VIC had only a 22 character screen while the original PET’s had 40
character screens, only VERY rudimentary Basic 2.0 software would function
on both machines. However, the VIC-20 was generally peripheral compatible
with most Commodore 64 devices.
Commodore’s wildly successful
1Mhz, 8 Bit CSG/MOS 6502 CPU powered the VIC. With good sound and colour
graphics, Commodore had winner.
The VIC was to be another important
Commodore first:
the Commodore KIM1 for hobbyist market, was the
worlds first single board computer
the Commodore PET for the business
market and early adopters, was the worlds first personal computer
the
Commodore VIC20 was the first color computer that retailed as a “computer
for the masses” at less than US$300 ($630 dollars in 2018)
Critics said
the machine was seriously under-powered but consumers bought them as fast
as Commodore could produce them. Other than the price, consumers were
attracted to the VIC-20 because most software came on easy to use ROM
cartridges that just plugged in the back and started to work. As the
vintage VIC-20 television advertisement below states “If you are going to
spend your time playing computer games, why not do it on something that
can also teach you about computing”:
Commodore’s very user
friendly BASIC 2.0 operating system and programming language automatically
booted when the machine was turned on. No peripherals were required except
a television to be used as a monitor.
Countless software developers
today began building their skills using a VIC20 bought for them by parents
as Christmas or birthday present. This was years before most schools even
had computer courses. About the time the VIC came out, my Commodore PET
ownership and experience allowed me to skip an entire course. I recall
enrolling in Grade 10 “Data Processing” class (which used Commodore
PET’s). On the first day I was told I would be getting an A+ and that I
should not to show up for class because I would be taking highly
constrained computer time away from others.
Worlds Cheapest Modem
at just $110 the VIC Modem was release in January 1982
Many
peripherals, like the VIC 1515 printer, 300 Baud VIC Modem, CBM 1020
Docking Station, 1540 Floppy Drive, and 1530 CN2 Cassette Drive were
released to various levels of consumer demand. A VIC 20 combined with
Terminal Cartridge and VIC Modem was one of the only ways to use “Bulletin
Board Systems” (aka BBS services) and pre-internet Information Services
like CompuServe. If you have the hardware, we still promote the Cottonwood
BBS that “Wiskow” still runs at now cost to you.
Unlike the PET,
Commodore never produced version Basic 4.0 upgrade ROM chips for the VIC.
Like the PET, however, the Commodore VIC-20 was released world wide
relatively quickly after it’s U.S. and Canadian introduction.
Commodore was becoming more sophisticated in its approach to marketing and
one of the results of this was that the VIC-20 was sold under different
names in different parts of the world:
Commodore Germany produced
VIC’s were branded as VC-20 which was supposed to be a play on the hugely
popular and inexpensive Volkswagen car brand: the VolksComputer was a big
hit in Europe. The impetus for changing the name was likely that “VIC”
spoken the German way is very close to f*ck. A VIC user in Europe, Holger
Zahnleiter, reports that In 1983 he bought a VC20 kit for DM800; it came
with a 16K expansion cartridge and a tape drive. We have several pictures
of the VC-20 in our photo-gallery at the bottom of this page.
In Japan
the VIC-20 was sold as a VIC-1001 which included a special character ROM
and a different Kernel and keyboard from the standard VIC-20. While this
allows Japanese buyers to use Katakana character it made the computer
largely incompatible with non-Japanese VIC’s. How the name 1001 was
arrived at is non known, but most think that it was simply a ‘lesser’
number than the Commodore PET which sold in Japan as a PET 2001. We have
several pictures of the VIC1001 in our photo-gallery at the bottom of this
page.
Commodore sold the PET product line through a tightly controlled
channel of authorized resellers, which gave the PET a professional image
and a business grade support system, but limited mass market adoption. If
you have to go to a computer store and you don’t really know what a home
computer is or can do for you… you are not likely to do it.
When
the VIC-20 arrived, Commodore had a whole new plan: sell them everywhere!
Soon enough folding cardboard stands filled with VIC computers and
peripherals were appearing in all kinds of stores. Commodore used “Captain
Kirk” William Shatner as their TV spokesman who asked consumers “Why buy a
just a video from Atari? Invest in the Wonder Computer on the 80’s from
Commodore”.
There were still authorized resellers who provided a
high level of service and had qualified hardware technicians on site but
the majority of VICs were sold in all major department stores and many
other businesses that had never dreamed of selling computers previously.
In Canada, Commodore even sold VIC’s through the Canadian Tire automotive
/ hardware store chain!
Late 1982 saw the beginning of the end: the
more expensive but much more capable Commodore 64 was announced. Just as
the VIC 20 was becoming popular and many stores and some multi-level
marketing organizations had acquired significant inventories, rumors began
to emerge that Commodore was completing work on a vastly more powerful
version of the VIC 20 to be called the VIC 64, which of course was
eventually released as the Commodore 64.
As the rumors of the
impending C64 release continued there was excitement and uncertainty in
the Commodore distribution channel and consumers. This was probably the
first experience many consumers had ever encountered with the phenomenon
we now refer to “upgrading”.
Undoubtedly some were resentful. Many
retailers had acquired large inventories of VIC product found themselves
scrambling to modify their marketing plans and to obtain price-protection
as the value of VIC-20 products plummeted. You can see in the flyer to the
right the the venerable Canadian Tire chain had dropped their retail price
to just $80 ($165 in 2018 dollars) by September of 1984.
Commodore
64 production ramped up, VIC prices dropped, and by 1984 it was obvious
that there would not be a place in the Commodore lineup for the venerable
VIC-20 and they stopped production, without even making an announcement in
January of 1985.
The VIC-20 sold a worlds first 1 million units and
had a massive 800 pieces of software available for it. The VIC was not a
just a commercial success. It was a home run for Commodore financially, it
expanded the fledgling home computer industry for all companies, and it
turned hundreds of thousands of consumers on to programming.
Commodore VIC-20 Chronology
1978
6560 VIC1 Chip developed, intended for game consoles to be
manufactured by OEM’s (read: not Commodore)
1980 April
Jack
Tramiel announced at a strategy meeting in London, England. The intention
is to build a US$300 home computer.
1980 June
VIC-1001 Announced
as the worlds first Colour Computer for less than $300 and sold in Japan’s
Seibu Department Store. The machine would later be rebranded VIC-20.
1981 Jan – Feb
First VIC’s delivered to retailers
Bally Arcade
licenses Commodore to manufacture its arcade games into cartridges for the
VIC-20
1982 Jan
VIC Modem, a 300 Baud Cartridge, is released for
$110
1982 Fall / Winter
Commodore 64 announced
Commodore has
shipped 750,000 VIC-20 computers by the end of 1982. Apple Computer has
shipped 600,000 Apple II computers by the end of 1982. Timex has shipped
600,000 Timex/Sinclair 1000 computers by the end of 1982. Texas
Instruments has shipped 575,000 TI 99/4 computers by the end of 1982.
1983 January
Commodore’s sales of VIC-20s exceeds 1,000,000 units!
1984 January
January 13th – Commodore shows off prototype 264 and
364 at CES and indicates they should be in production by June
January
15th – Commodores founder, visionary and CEO, Jack Tramiel quits Commodore
with secret plans to buy the near bankrupt Atari
Commodore shows a
Golden Jubilee version of the 64 to commemorate the 1,000,000 C64 to be
produced in the US
1985 January
Commodore shows off the C128
Personal Computer at CES. This new machine has three modes: 64, CP/M and
the new 128KB mode
Last VIC is produced and shipped
Total lifetime
sales are about 2,500,000 units (http://www.oldsoftware.com/history.html)
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