{"id":274,"date":"2018-04-30T01:12:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T01:12:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nzwww.vintagevibe.co.nz192.168.1.161\/?p=274"},"modified":"2025-07-25T05:52:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T05:52:46","slug":"commodore-vic-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/?p=274","title":{"rendered":"Commodore VIC 20"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0<b>VIC<\/b>\u00a0in VIC-20 stands for\u00a0<b>V<\/b>ideo\u00a0<b>I<\/b>nterface\u00a0<b>C<\/b>hip. 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<\/p>\n<p>Introduced: June 1980<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/vic20_motherboard.jpg&#8221; title_text=&#8221;vic20_motherboard&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Bad VIC chip needs to be\u00a0 replaced<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20210925_144226-scaled-1.jpg&#8221; title_text=&#8221;20210925_144226-scaled&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; custom_padding=&#8221;||3px|||&#8221;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Replaced and heat sink added<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=&#8221;1_2,1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20210925_144230-scaled-1.jpg&#8221; title_text=&#8221;20210925_144230-scaled&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Passes all tests<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=&#8221;1_2&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_image src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/20210925_144244-scaled-1.jpg&#8221; title_text=&#8221;20210925_144244-scaled&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221; hover_enabled=&#8221;0&#8243;][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;][et_pb_text _builder_version=&#8221;4.5.3&#8243; _module_preset=&#8221;default&#8221;] 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&#8217;s video chip, the MOS Technology VIC, was a general-purpose color video [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vintage-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1704,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/1704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagevibe.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}