new vic-20 and a queston about ram

[discgolfer72]

just got a great vic-20 set today

had to buy an allsop metal art corner stand so I had a place to put it lol (think I'm ordering another one because it works really well and looks to be large enough to hold my tandy and Atari 800xl also )

 

 

first off since I just finished the tosec set what's up with all the magazine's ind64 format are these worth writing to a disk and messing with(game demos?) or should I just purge them from my folder

 

second

I think I remember reading on a wiki or something that the vic ship's with 5k ram but there was empty slots available inside and the machine can be upgraded internally (I know they have the ram carts) if so what chips do I need(have not taken this guy apart yet )

 

I already have a final expansion 3 on its way but it would be nice to max this baby out if possible

Edited February 9, 2018 by discgolfer72

[discgolfer72]

well after some research (and opening the computer up) looks like i misread about the ram

been having some fun testing out games

and without the ram expansions my options are limited

 

lol some reallllyyyyyy bad ones and some pretty good ones lol

 

i have a question about the power section on the tape drive port

 

im getting spotty power coming out

and had to stop using the port all together as i started getting a magic smoke odor

the transitor right inside in line with the port is getting hot and causing the smell

is that a voltage regulaor anyone know a proper replacment for it

[carlsson]

Some people have piggy-backed extra RAM inside, but that makes the VIC non-standard. I don't think it ever was a common practise.

 

Is that a two-prong VIC-20 that only takes 9V AC, or a later DIN-style VIC-20CR that has the same type of power as the C64? I have a partly broken VIC-20CR here but when looking inside, I can't spot a standard voltage regulator. Perhaps Ray Carlsen or someone else (Denial wiki?) has some docs about the motherboard.

[discgolfer72]

its a din style power plug not the 2 pin

it may not be a voltage regulator

without opening it up again if you look inside the machine from the tape port

on your left you see a round ceramic capacitor to the right of it lying flat on the board is some sort of transistor that is what was getting hot and making a smell

 

it was also very hot to the touch

 

I didn't dig much deeper because there is no trouble with the machine unless the tape drive is hooked up played for hours after from a 1541 drive and no heat or smell

 

my first thought ways voltage regulator for the tape drive but maybe it is some sort of switching transistor

[carlsson]

Aha. Mine says D880 and the position is called Q4. Ray writes:

 

 

 

Q4 2SD880 TRANSISTOR, CASS. MOTOR DRIVER

Cassette motor doesn't run. Common failure.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/vic20/vic20.txt

 

So you are probably right that component would need replacing if the cassette is hard to get to play and the part gets hot and smells.

[+SpiceWare]

VIC 20 version of Omega Race is the best port of the game I've run across.

 

Bandits is one of my favorite VIC 20 games. Starts out a simple clone of Stratovox, but adds a number of new features and enemy types.

 

[+save2600]

Kinda like the look of your new C64c case with the old breadbin keyboard!

[+OLD CS1]

Kinda like the look of your new C64c case with the old breadbin keyboard!

 

I am surprised I do not see this more often. BITD when people were buying the 64C case upgrade kits -- I do not know if those were third-party or official from Commodore -- they were moving their bread-bin 64 mobos into a 64C case, including the brown keyboards. I figured a lot more of those cases sold than apparently did given how infrequently I see them.

[discgolfer72]

VIC 20 version of Omega Race is the best port of the game I've run across.

 

Bandits is one of my favorite VIC 20 games. Starts out a simple clone of Stratovox, but adds a number of new features and enemy types.

 

does that game require any extra ram if so ill have to wait until my final expansion gets here before I can try it out

 

Kinda like the look of your new C64c case with the old breadbin keyboard!

lol yea I like the contrast

the story behind it is here

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273968-1541commodore64-thin-buble-wrap/

 

I really like the way my stacked computers look the color matching loks great apple 2 and ti99 and the c64 and vic 20

 

I'm going to buy another one of the stands I'm using for the 64 and vic ,so I can stack my 800 and trash 80 but that might not fit as well as the other 2

 

it will be nice to have a bit of desk space back (until I find another pc to fill the space lol)

[+SpiceWare]

does that game require any extra ram if so ill have to wait until my final expansion gets here before I can try it out

 

No extra RAM is required as, like many VIC 20 games, those are cartridge based games.

 

I'm not familiar with the Final Expansion, I picked up a Mega-Cart back in 2009, but a quick look and it appears that you can load cartridge games into it from an SD card like we do using the Harmony Cart on the 2600.

[carlsson]

I built my own Final Expansion several years ago. I tested that it works, but I never managed to assemble the shell and cables properly. Thus I have never got to use it but yes, I believe it has a Flash memory that you can fill and then load programs from.

 

By the way, Bandits is NTSC only which means both of you can enjoy it but not so many over here (except in emulation). I haven't checked in the last few years if anyone managed to hack it for PAL but I believe the code is so intrisinc with raster line timing that it would require a complete disassembly and patching.

[discgolfer72]

 

No extra RAM is required as, like many VIC 20 games, those are cartridge based games.

 

I'm not familiar with the Final Expansion, I picked up a Mega-Cart back in 2009, but a quick look and it appears that you can load cartridge games into it from an SD card like we do using the Harmony Cart on the 2600.

looks promising

its an all in 1 solution has all the needed extended ram

plus sd2iec built in

and its a flash cart also

so i should be set lol

 

I was torn between the Penultimate Cartridge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Fj8SALkbg

and the final expansion 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0uNSn_T64

 

I decided the final expansion was the way to go since I can load my choice of cart games on it as well as run disk games

 

I built my own Final Expansion several years ago. I tested that it works, but I never managed to assemble the shell and cables properly. Thus I have never got to use it but yes, I believe it has a Flash memory that you can fill and then load programs from.

 

By the way, Bandits is NTSC only which means both of you can enjoy it but not so many over here (except in emulation). I haven't checked in the last few years if anyone managed to hack it for PAL but I believe the code is so intrisinc with raster line timing that it would require a complete disassembly and patching.

lol ive had bad luck so far lol

until I get my final expansion I've been using the sd2iec on my c64 to write vic games to a floppy

so far more than half of the times I tried I end up with a pal game and the screen is way off center (using a ntsc console with a pal Sony BRAVIA TV and running a pal game gets all kinds of funny results lol)

 

for some reason the tosec 2014 vic-20 set does not list the games as pal or ntsc in the name

Edited February 9, 2018 by discgolfer72

[carlsson]

Yes, it is very unfortunate that Commodore used different value ranges for screen positioning. The PAL has a little more granularity in positioning horizontally and vertically, but in principle they could have used the same value ranges and barely any incompatibility had occurred.

 

A smart programmer reads the default values from the Kernel ROM and calculates new offsets based on those instead of using own hardcoded values, but back then very few programmers were that smart or had that amount of program space to work with. As long as games stick to a 22x23 area, there is no reason to reposition the screen in the first place.

 

Most of the cartridge games from Commodore and others were default set for NTSC positioning, so on PAL computers we get the screen in the upper left corner. Some games allow the user to move the screen into visable position, some don't. Many games were patched with the Mega-Cart release to be runnable on both video modes, but some exist in separate versions which is why you need to specify NTSC or PAL when ordering a Mega-Cart.

Edited February 9, 2018 by carlsson

[discgolfer72]

 

Most of the cartridge games from Commodore and others were default set for NTSC positioning, so on PAL computers we get the screen in the upper left corner. Some games allow the user to move the screen into visable position, some don't. Many games were patched with the Mega-Cart release to be runnable on both video modes, but some exist in separate versions which is why you need to specify NTSC or PAL when ordering a Mega-Cart.

running the ntsc console on the pal tv (tv also supports ntsc )

some games work great

the ones that don't, show the picture shifted to the bottom right

[carlsson]

Yes, the screen positioning (and any eventual raster line timing) is all inside the computer. Using a NTSC computer on a PAL TV doesn't change anything, except that the PAL TV might lose colours or in extreme cases lose sync and cause the image to roll though frankly I can't remember encountering that. Using a PAL computer on a NTSC TV would likewise lose colours, probably not everything on screen being visible or the display rolling around again. However the visible screen would not be adjusted in either direction due to using the wrong type of TV.

[brain]

Shamelessly plugging:

 

http://www.go4retro.com/products/ultimem/

http://store.go4retro.com/ultimem-vic-20-memory-expansion-cartridge/

[discgolfer72]

loving the final expansion 3

took a second to figure out how to load my own games list

and that names must be under 16 letters

but now im rocking

really great device and a tru all in one soultion for the vic

https://youtu.be/xak5-Q1B-ho

 

 

anyone know of any good games that were flopy only release have pretty much every cart game loaded but floppy stuff is hit n miss if the screen syncs right

[Mayhem]

I'm aware of about 2-3 original games that were released on disk, not sure if they were also released on tape, but they aren't multiloads. There are probably more modern homebrew titles that take advantage of disk, look for Psytronik releases for starters.

[eightbit]

does that game require any extra ram if so ill have to wait until my final expansion gets here before I can try it out

 

lol yea I like the contrast

the story behind it is here

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/273968-1541commodore64-thin-buble-wrap/

 

I really like the way my stacked computers look the color matching loks great apple 2 and ti99 and the c64 and vic 20

 

I'm going to buy another one of the stands I'm using for the 64 and vic ,so I can stack my 800 and trash 80 but that might not fit as well as the other 2

 

it will be nice to have a bit of desk space back (until I find another pc to fill the space lol)

 

 

You sire need a new IIe Platinum keyboard I happen to have a spare. If you want it for a nominal fee let me know!

[discgolfer72]

 

 

You sire need a new IIe Platinum keyboard I happen to have a spare. If you want it for a nominal fee let me know!

lol thanks for the offer but I got it for almost nothing

and never use the number pad (only play games )

just depends on what your idea of nominal is lol

 

did just get a new stand so now all of the computers are stacked lol

also just finished installing the complete tosec set on my final expansion now to spend the next month purging all the fluff and non working games lol

 

https://youtu.be/qiFd9YjIDR4

Edited February 12, 2018 by discgolfer72

[eightbit]

Well, I could use that FloppyEMU But of course I'd give you more than just a keyboard for it