Commodore VIC-20

We all have a first computer that we learned to work on, play games on, and write some programs on. While my father had earlier computers in the house, it wasn’t until he purchased the Commodore VIC-20 in the early 1980s that I truly fell in love with working on a computer. I started with the manual that came with the system helping me write simple programs to print to the screen, draw basic shapes, and do simple mathematics. (You can check the manual here)

So what was in this magical off-white box with black/brown keycaps?

1. Processor: 6502 Based Chip at 1 MHz

2. RAM Memory: 5 KB base (expandable with cartridges), 3.5 KB available for basic programs

3. ROM Memory: 20 KB with the built-in BASIC interpreter and operating system

4. Video (Text): 22 columns by 23 rows

5. Video (Graphics): 176 by 184 pixels @ 16 colors

6. Sound: Integrated VIC Chip 3-channel Mono speaker

7. Input: Full-size 66-key board, Expansion cartridge slot (Games or Memory)

8. Output: Composite TV, Joystick

This was the first system that we not only purchased game cartridges for but also had games available on cassette tapes. We also had game magazines like Compute! that had games that we could enter and save to play on the system. We had to sit down and enter source code, sometimes its just 50–100 lines but the complicated games were often pages of machine code with line checksums to help with data entry. (here is an edition with VIC-20 games)

Some of my earliest memories of computer programming involve sitting beside my dad, meticulously entering line after line of machine code. In our family, I had the patience to read the code aloud to him — sometimes over several nights — until the game was fully entered and safely saved.

We did have several game cartridges for the VIC-20, but the one that I remember the most was Mission Impossible. We first had the game from a magazine if I remember right but got the game later on on a cartridge as it had more content. The game was side-scrolling and had platform jumps that would be the core of games like Mario and Sonic. I played this game for hours, I don’t know for sure that I ever completed the full game but that wasn’t uncommon for games of that generation. You can try out an HTML version here if you are curious about how the game works (I believe this copy is the C-64 version but is a good reference)