Commodore once again had a number of firsts with the VIC-20. It
was the first computer to sell more than a million units, and it was
the first color computer to break the $300 price barrier. The ‘20’ in
the VIC’s name was just abritrary as the machine only had 5K of
RAM and a 22 column display. It was family friendly however, and
caught on with people of all ages. The mold that the VIC-20 was
made from would be repeated with the Commodore 64 and even
later with the Commodore 16. The VIC had built in BASIC v2.0
and ran a 6502A microprocessor at 1MHz. It had 16 colors and 3
sound voices.
VIC Trivia
In Germany, it was rebranded the VC-20 because of the play on the popular VW cars, and VIC when pronounced is very close to a swear word
The last VIC-20's were produced in January 1985, giving the VIC a full 4 year life cyclce
This computer is currently interactive in the Museum.
User Comments
Fsporsche on Tuesday, July 27, 2010 I got my vic-20 in 1981 and learned to program on it. Since than i have been into computer and technology. I currently work in the Information Technology field as a Director. I owe it all to my vic....I still use it to program and brush up on my basic, Machine Language and Fourth.
Anonymous on Thursday, June 03, 2010 This was the first computer i owned! i paid 20 bucks for it at a rummage sale. i think vic is the roman numeral for 20 but roman numerals are not well known to me. it had a tape drive and a memory expansion card. I think it had am archaic form of ANSI graphics.
Harry on Thursday, May 17, 2007 Bought a Vic-20 in March, 1981 at K-Mart for $97.00. It was supposed to replace the kid's atari2600 but I kinda took it over when I discovered you could write your own programs. Have one in the closet but the power supply doesn't work.
 "Commodore VIC-20")
