The VIC-20 was intended to be more economical than the PET computer. It was equipped with 5 KB of static RAM and used the same MOS 6502 CPU as the PET. The VIC-20’s video chip, the MOS Technology VIC, was a general-purpose color video chip designed by Al Charpentier in 1977 and intended for use in inexpensive display terminals and game consoles, but Commodore could not find a market for the chip.
The VIC in VIC-20 stands for Video Interface Chip. This chip was designed by Commodore two years prior for video game machines, never intending it for use in their own computer system. Unfortunately no one wanted it, so Commodore engineers designed the VIC-20 computer around it
Introduced: June 1980
