Vic-20 Disk Drive?

[Tempest]

Is there any real use for a disk drive on the Vic-20?  I have a spare 1571 that I could hook up to mine, but is there a real reason to do so?  I have a Denial multicart with all the cartridge games and some tape conversions, but are there any disk only games?  Have any of the tape games been converted to disks?

[carlsson]

Original games: Well, perhaps 1 or 2 games were disk based. I don't know which ones those were.

 

Modern games: Much more likely that you'll find disk based games, but then again I don't know which ones.

 

Scene demos: There are  plenty of disk based demos (mainly PAL) if that is your kettle of fish.

 

Practical purpose: I found it easier in the 90's to have disks full of single filed games than loading from tape. Nowadays you'd use something like a SD2IEC instead, if you want to extend the library from what is included on the Mega-Cart.

[motrucker]

Here in the 'States, there were loads of disk based programs, including many games. Was Europe really that much different?

 

 

[Tempest]

Were there really?  I didn't think disk drives were at all common on the Vic.

[+OLD CS1]

Not certain about common, but for the short time I had a VIC I had a 1540.  I do not recall a lot of commercial titles on disk, though.  There were some at K-Mart and Target, but mostly I remember cassettes and cartridges for the VIC.

 

Hooking up the 1571 to a VIC is a bit of a waste of a drive, but if it is all you have then whatever and if you have JiffyDOS or other DOS wedge you can manually set it to use double-sided mode (another waste, really,) or you could get creative and use the VIC as an MFM-reading system (was Big Blue Reader on the VIC a thing?).

 

If you have the resources and want a more realistic experience, you can pick up one of the giant 1541s and install 1540 ROMs.  The 1540 and the VIC are actually a bit faster (20%, I think?) than a 1541 with a Commodore 64.  IIRC, the long-board 1541s are the same hardware as the 1540 and thus will accept the 1540 ROMs -- this information can be found on Zimmers.

 

That is if you want to stay with the authentic experience.  I love my floppies and my disk drives, but they take up a LOT of space.  As mentioned, an SD2IEC would definitely be a worthwhile investment, even if you do go with real drives and floppies.

[carlsson]

The quoted 20-25% is some kind of best case scenario. I have benchmarked a VIC-20 with 1541-II both in 1541 mode and 1540 mode. It is a bit faster, but IIRC on average it is 10-15% faster, of course greater difference the longer files you load (e.g. with a 16K or more memory expansion). Nowadays there are fastloaders on the VIC-20 which speeds it up further.

[Tempest]

On 7/8/2019 at 6:01 AM, OLD CS1 said:

Hooking up the 1571 to a VIC is a bit of a waste of a drive, but if it is all you have then whatever and if you have JiffyDOS or other DOS wedge you can manually set it to use double-sided mode (another waste, really,) or you could get creative and use the VIC as an MFM-reading system (was Big Blue Reader on the VIC a thing?).

 

True, but that's the only spare drive I have.  I use it with Zoom Floppy to make disks for my C128D which already has a disk drive built in.

[motrucker]

On 7/8/2019 at 6:01 AM, OLD CS1 said:

Not certain about common, but for the short time I had a VIC I had a 1540.  I do not recall a lot of commercial titles on disk, though.  There were some at K-Mart and Target, but mostly I remember cassettes and cartridges for the VIC.

 

 

In this area Vic 20 software could be purchased from places like Sears, K Mart, etc., on disk, or computer shops that supported the 8 bit market. We had a "super store" for CBM stuff called Buried Treasure in Rockville (just out of Washington D.C.).

There were fast loaders for disk drives for both the C-64 and Vic 20. Compute! Magazine ran a type in program for both machines. A quote from Wikipedia on this;

"Several popular Commodore magazines published type-in fast loading software. In April 1985, Compute! published TurboDisk, a fast loader that included C64 and VIC-20 versions. This program proved popular and was republished in the July 1985 issue of Compute!'s Gazette.

It was printed yet again in August 1986, without the VIC-20 version, but with several accompanying utilities to relocate the program in memory and to create auto-booting software that took advantage of TurboDisk's speed. A Commodore 128 version was also included for those C128 users who still had 1541 disk drives."

 

[carlsson]

Ironically the VIC-20 was more or less commercially dead by April 1985. I think the reason COMPUTE! published versions for both machines is they still were popular and similar enough to warrant a version each, otherwise readers would complain.

 

I don't know about Sears or K-Mart, though generally VIC-20 collectors rarely speak about original disk software back in the days. Were those compilations, user group disks packaged for sale or original software? I could imagine something in the line of 5-10 disk titles, though you seem to indicate there were far more available for the VIC.

[Tempest]

I'm sure people put a lot of tape programs onto disks (I am interested in those as well), but I'm curious if there were many disk only titles for the Vic.  Talk about a small market.  Sort of like CD titles for the early non-PC systems (Atari ST, Apple IIgs, Amiga, etc.).

[carlsson]

I know at least Datatronic Forth (which itself was cartridge based) would work best if you used a floppy drive for secondary storage, where it stores every screen of definitions, but alas that is a programming environment, not a game. I'm sure there are other examples of productivity software where floppy disks were preferred, even though the VIC-20 usually is not associated with productivity software due to its low screen resolution and stock memory (which though can be expanded).

 

I believe the 1540 was launched early 1982 rather than mid-1981 but I could be wrong about that. At least Commodore issued the floppy drive before the C64 (which is better paired with the upgraded 1541 with timings to accomodate), which is unlike said CD expansions for 16-bit computers that were quite late in their respective time frames.

 

But yes, I am just as interested in some pointers to those disk titles. At least when I looked in the usual places, I found very little information about those. I seem to recall some Oil Barons type game which ran on 16K expanded VIC-20 and floppy drive but I might have dreamed about that.

[motrucker]

8 hours ago, carlsson said:

Ironically the VIC-20 was more or less commercially dead by April 1985. I think the reason COMPUTE! published versions for both machines is they still were popular and similar enough to warrant a version each, otherwise readers would complain.

 

I don't know about Sears or K-Mart, though generally VIC-20 collectors rarely speak about original disk software back in the days. Were those compilations, user group disks packaged for sale or original software? I could imagine something in the line of 5-10 disk titles, though you seem to indicate there were far more available for the VIC.

I am referring to to games from the original publishers. You sure wouldn't ever see user group disks packaged for sale in a retail store here.

VIC 20 commercial disk games were no where near as prolific as C-64 games, and I don't mean to infer that, but they were there, at least in this area.

Programs on tape just weren't very popular here, for the C-64 or the VIC. Cartridge based games are another story.....

 

 

[carlsson]

Hm, ok. After checking the TOSEC at archive.org, removing obvious type-ins and cartridge hacks, it suggests the following titles exist as D64 images. Of course it doesn't mean those are originals, they could've been user generated as well.

 

ABI: Rabbit Chase

Abrasco: Alien Hunter, Android Attack, Meter Mania

ALA: Volcano Blast

Anirog: Frogrun, Mini Kong, Minitron, Slap Dab, Xeno II

Arcadia: Asteroids

Argus Press: Hunter

Atlantic: Omnitron

Audiogenic: The Tomb of Drewan

Cascade: Pan Attack

Epyx: Temple of Apshai

K-Tel: Alien Demon, Bomber Run

Llamasoft: Rox III

Mr. Chip: Bugsy, Kwazy Kwacks

Mr. Micro: The Mysterious Island

Ocean: Hunchback

Pixel: The Trader Trilogy

Rabbit: Cosmic Battle, Cyclons, Escape MCP, Lunar Rescue, Paratroopers, Space Storm

Romik: Atom Smasher, Galaxia, Power Blaster, Quadrant, Sea Invasion, Shark Attack, Zorgon's Kingdom

Sierra: Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash

Soloar (??): Galaxions

Templation: Alien Vortex

Titan: Star Wars II

VIC-Soft: Space Zap

Virgin: Mission Mercury

 

I am afraid that list contains a lot of false positives. I can see Temple of Apshai in a genuine disk release, possibly Trader Trilogy as well. I would be very suspicious about a disk version of Mt. Drash, given how incredibly rare the tape version is.

Edited August 8, 2019 by carlsson

[oracle_jedi]

7 hours ago, carlsson said:

 

I am afraid that list contains a lot of false positives. I can see Temple of Apshai in a genuine disk release, possibly Trader Trilogy as well. I would be very suspicious about a disk version of Mt. Drash, given how incredibly rare the tape version is.

 

Agreed.   From my memory, Rabbit, Romik and Anirog never released anything on disk for the VIC.  K-Tel was a budget brand that packed two games on each tape - not the sort of thing that would lend itself to a disk release back in the days with the drive cost more than twice what the computer did.

 

We could test Trader Trilogy in WinVICE and see what happens at the end of Part 1.  Does it tell you to press SHIFT and RUN STOP to load Part 2?  

 

None of which is to say that some enterprising group State-side didn't acquire the rights to those games and issue disk releases.  But in almost 20 years of trawling Ebay I've never seen one.

 

As for the original question.  My thoughts are a real disk drive is of limited value for a VIC today.  The disk drive is slow, noisy and cumbersome to move files onto, as well as requiring a significant investment in desk space.  The SD2IEC options are smaller, silent and simpler to move files onto from your modern PC.  All that said, I do miss using my 1581 with the VIC.  The 800K disk size seemed well suited to storing several 16K games, without so many that it was hard to read the directory listing.  Alas the 1581 motherboard died  

 

[RobertB]

4 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

Alas the 1581 motherboard died  

 

Ray Carlsen can fix the 1581 motherboard.

 

Writing from Las Vegas two days ahead of CommVEx,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

August 10-11 Commodore Vegas Expo - http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

[oracle_jedi]

45 minutes ago, RobertB said:

Ray Carlsen can fix the 1581 motherboard.

 

 

 

Ray's already taken a run at it.  After some tinkering he got it going, then it failed again here.  Something screwy is up with this one.

 

 

[carlsson]

22 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

We could test Trader Trilogy in WinVICE and see what happens at the end of Part 1.  Does it tell you to press SHIFT and RUN STOP to load Part 2?

AHA!

 

5560 PRINT"{CLR}{BLUE}LOAD "+CHR$(34)+"TRADER2"+CHR$(34)+",8"

5590 POKE631,19:POKE632,131:POKE198,2:END

 

That means it will load the next part from floppy and autostart it. Of course the version online could be modified, but it is strong hint that there actually be a genuine disk version of this somewhere. After all, the game is three parts and a total of nearly 50 kilobytes which is unusually large for a VIC-20 game.

[RobertB]

On 8/9/2019 at 1:48 AM, oracle_jedi said:

 

Ray's already taken a run at it.  After some tinkering he got it going, then it failed again here.  Something screwy is up with this one.

Send it back to Ray.  He guarantees his repairs.

 

Back in California from CommVEx,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm