• Tag Archives VIC-20

  • Commodore Power/Play (Spring 1983)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: Commodore Power/Play – Spring 1983

    Commodore Power/Play was one of Commodore’s early official publications. This magazine emphasized home and entertainment usage. In 1983 this meant mostly the VIC-20 and the then still fairly new Commodore 64. The Spring 1983 issue includes:

    Features

    • New Game Cartridges for the Commodore 64 – The cartridge format for games was really only briefly popular. Pretty soon most games were released on disk, at least in the U.S. Here’s a look at some early cartridge games including Jupiter Lander, Radar Ratrace, Speed Math/Bingo Math, Kickman, and Tooth Invaders
    • I Program with Gortek – A look at Gortek and the Microchips, a programming tutorial developed by Commodore for kids.
    • Making Friends With SID, Part 2 – Part 2 of an ongoing series on the Commodore 64’s SID chip including some examples of how to generate sound and music.
    • Decwar! – A look at this multiplayer interstellar war game available on CompuServe.
    • Getting the Chores Done – A type-in program for the VIC-20 to help organize and assign chore.
    • VIC Super Piano – A type-in program that turns your VIC-20 into a piano with which you can also record and playback music with visual effects.
    • Machine Language is a POKEr’s Game – A guide to incorporating machine language routines into your own programs.

    Departments

    • Braindrops – The magazine reaches 100,000 readers plus a look at the changes in this issue.
    • The VIC Magician – A guide to programming the function keys of the VIC-20.
    • Butterfield – Learn how to make music on your Commodore 64.
    • High Scores – High scores for Blue Meanies, Car Chase, Cosmic Cruncher, Draw Poker, Jupiter Lander, Gorf, Midnight Drive, Mole Attack, Omega Race, Pinball Spectacular, Radar Rat Race, Raid on Fort Knox, Sea Wolf, Sky Is Falling, Slither, Super Alien, Super Slither, Super Slot, Super Smash and VIC Avenger.
    • User Group Spotlight – The story behind the New Mexico Commodore Users Group.
    • Access: Commodore User Groups – A comprehensive list of Commodore user groups around the world.
    • Jiffies – Brief looks at new software including two new cassette six packs for the VIC-20. The first includes NumBowl, LCM Machine, Sector Five, Backfire, Ruler Dueler, and Scare City Motel. The second includes VIC Synthesizer, Crawler, Alpha Draw, Super Seekers, Big Bad Wolf, and Treasures of the Bat Cave. Also reviewed are Pinball Spectacular for the VIC-20, The VIC Programmable Character Set & Gamegraphics Editor, and more.
    • Program Listings – Type-in programs including Crazy Balloons (guide your balloon through an obstacle course without popping it), Fill-in-the-Blanks (a mad libs sort of thing), Craps (the dice game), Lazy Line Numbering (a program to auto number lines in your programs), and Phone Home (a guessing game featuring E.T.).
    • Tele / Scope – A type-in program for capturing your online sessions to save to disk and/or print.
    • Book Review – Reviews of Compute!’s First Book of VIC and True Names.
    • New Products – The most interesting thing here is the announcement of an Atari to VIC-20 cartridge adapter that supposedly let you play Atari 2600 games on the VIC-20. Multiple companies advertised such devices but as far as I know, they were all vaporware. Perhaps it was really a ploy by Commodore to get people to buy more VIC-20s?

    …and more!


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  • RUN (February 1984)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Source: RUN – Issue Number 2 – February 1984

    RUN was one of a few magazines published in the U.S. that were dedicated to the Commodore 64 and it was perhaps the most popular. In its early days, it also covered the VIC-20, it briefly covered the Commodore 16/Plus 4 and added Commodore 128 coverage when that machine was released but for most of its life it covered primarily the Commodore 64. The February 1984 issue (issue number 2), includes:

    Features

    • C-64 Graphics Galore – At the time the Commodore 64 was introduced, it had better graphics capabilities than anything else on the market. This article goes over some of those capabilities and some of the software available to help you take advantage of them.
    • Shortcut to Color – A type-in program to help you control on-screen colors on the Commodore 64.
    • Speedy Mosquito – A type-in BASIC game in which you must swat the mosquito.
    • Database Deluxe – A type-in database program for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64.
    • Sure-Shootin’ Gallery – A type-in game that emulates the shooting galleries found at carnivals and fairs.
    • A Taste of Arrays – A tutorial on BASIC arrays for the Commodore 64 with example code.
    • Fancy Fingering on the Function Keys – A type-in program that lets you assign whatever functions you want to the VIC-20 function keys.
    • Iron Hand or VIC-20? – A type-in strategy game for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64 in which you run your own kingdom.
    • Be a VIC Memory Miser – A tutorial that provides some techniques for saving RAM on the VIC-20. Given that the stock RAM on a VIC-20 was only 3.5 Kilobytes, I can see how this would be useful.
    • Mystery of the Black Box Revealed – A look at the Commodore 1541 floppy drive.
    • Triple Threat – A tutorial to help you convert between Octal, Decimal and Hex number systems.
    • Tips You Won’t Forget – Another article that provides some tips for managing RAM on the VIC-20.
    • Disk Master Revisited – A type-in program to help you manage data on your floppy disks.
    • The Straight A Program – A type-in program to help teachers keep track of grades for a class.
    • Spriten Up! – A type-in program to help simplify creating sprites on the Commodore 64.
    • Reach Out and Touch-Tone Someone – A type-in program for the Commodore 64 that gives you a menu-driven touch-tone dialer.
    • Create a VICasso – Designing custom characters of the VIC-20.
    • A Cure for the Ailing Doctor’s Office – A case study on using the Commodore 64 to run a small doctor’s office.
    • Beyond the Manual – Part of a continuing BASIC tutorial, this month focusing on assigning values to variables.

    Departments

    • RUNning Ruminations – Improving program listings.
    • MAGIC – Short programming tricks including detecting key presses, eliminating extra quotation marks to save memory, using commas and semicolons, creating a frame around your screen, controlling the cursor, and more.
    • Commodore Clinic – Questions answered from readers about using short commands, listing two separate sections of a program, programming a light pen, database and accounting software availability, Tally brand printers, and more.
    • Software Gallery – Reviews of Turmoil, a shoot-em-up game for the Commodore 64 and VIC-20; Turtle Graphics II, kid oriented programming language on cartridge; Logo, another computer programming language for the Commodore 64; Vanilla Pilot, providing enhanced programming commands to the Commodore 64; Nukewar, a human vs. computer nuclear war strategy game for the Commodore 64; and more.
    • Video Casino – A type-in program simply called ‘Draw’ for the VIC-20 that lets you create art.
    • Mail RUN – Letters from readers, mostly with praise for and questions about the first issue.
    • Book Gallery – Reviews of the Commodore 64 User’s Handbook, The Elementary Commodore 64, and User’s Handbook to the VIC-20.
    • Games RUNdown – A brief look at some recently released games, including Quest of the Eagle (Commodore 64), Plasmania (VIC-20), Bumper Bash (VIC-20), Save New York! (Commodore 64), Moondust (Commodore 64), Rat Hotel (VIC-20), Zorloc (VIC-20), Enchanter (Commodore 64), Kid Grid (Commodore 64), Juice (Commodore 64), Beach-head (Commodore 64) – one of my favorites!, Star Battle (Commodore 64), Killerpiller (VIC-20, Commodore64), Speed Racer (Commodore 64), Candy Bandit (Commodore 64), and Seafox (Commodore 64).
    • Hardware RUNdown – An overview of some of the latest hardware for Commodore computers, including a couple of Panasonic dot matrix printers, the Micro-X64 expansion interface board for the Commodore 64, and more.
    • Software RUNdown – A brief look at some of the latest software available for Commodore computers, including Note Pro I and Note Pro II music software for the Commodore 64; Spellbound educational (spelling) software for the Commodore 64; Designer Screens, a drawing program for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64; VIP Terminal, terminal software for the Commodore 64; Tax Command, tax software for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64; and more.

    …and more!


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  • Data 20 Corporation (Commodore 64, VIC 20)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    This ad is from a company called Data 20 Corporation (or is it Data20?) and is promoting a series of cartridges for the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. They seem to be a combination of software and hardware upgrade. Prices are not mentioned though.

    The first product is the VIC 20 Video Pak which comes with Word Manager. The Video Pak allows the VIC-20 to display 40 or 80 columns instead of the stock 22 columns. The word processor worked with this 40 or 80 column mode. The advantage of an 80-column screen is that it gave you more of a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) display since printers printed 80 columns. This cartridge also upgrades the memory to 12K (stock is something like 5.5K).

    The next product is the VIDEO PAK 80 for the Commodore 64. It added an 80 column monochrome display capability to the Commodore 64. By default, the Commodore 64 could only display 40 columns (though in color). It also included the free Word Manager word processing software, a terminal emulator mode, and a screen print function. I’m assuming the terminal emulator could be used with a modem to call BBSes or other online services. 80 columns would have been nice for that but you lose out on color.

    The next product is the Z-80 Video Pak which added a Z-80 processor and CP/M capability to the Commodore 64 in addition to the 80 column display. CP/M was the standard for businesses before DOS took over so there was tons of software available for it. Obtaining CP/M software on disks formatted for the Commodore 64’s 1541 disk drive could be difficult though.

    Also included in this ad are more common items like a printer interface and memory expansion for the VIC-20. There is also an Expansion Chassis that lets you use up to four cartridges on the VIC-20. This was useful for combining memory expansion with game cartridges or other expansions.

    No prices are listed but this ad is from the May 1983 issue of Compute! I would guess than in 1983 most of these items would have been pretty expensive, relatively speaking.


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