swlovinist
05-01-2007, 01:50 AM
I have to admit that I arrived to the Vic party a little late...like 20+ years late. I was heavy into video game collecting but totally naive to what was to bestow upon me on that sunny crisp morning.
During one of my lucky thrift runs(I was travelling about 50 miles out when gas was like, normal priced) when I cam across something I had never seen before. The computer box said Commodore on it, but it did not look like a Commodore 64. I had already maxed out my limit of what my wife could tolerate in our small apartment...but I could not resist. The sale at the Salvation Army was half of yellow sticker items...that meant that the computer would be a whole 3 bucks. Paying with some remaining change, I quickly grabbed the computer and was heading out the door. The sales clerk replied, "hey you might as well take this stuff too, as I dont know if it works". The clerk showed me some beige looking carts that look like time forgot. Seeing that I did not know what Vic 20 carts looked like, I took them.
Trying not to speed home, I quickly went into my gameroom to pray to the gaming gods that the computer worked. Opening up the box I smelled the classic odor of "new plastic" and realized that the computer looked nearly untouched. I hooked up the computer and plugged in the ugle beige cart in the back, after realizing that the cart did in fact go with the Computer. The game was Omega race, and I was pleasantly suprised about how basic yet fun the game was. I then popped in some other carts, such as Avenger, and one of my favorites "Turmoil". All it took was a twitch classic such as turmoil, and I was hooked, mostly from that fact that I had reached "totally undiscovered gaming territory".
Months went by and my desire for the system grew. With the nearly non existant demand for carts on the internet, I was snatching up carts left and right. After six months, I had amassed an impressive 100+ different carts, my favorite being Pharoh's curse, an awsome Pitfall style game that was well done on a graphically inferior system.
Even though the Vic 20 was one of my gaming casualities of moving up North(800 miles North to Washington State from Northern California) I consider the discovery of the Vic 20 a major gaming momment for me, the discovery of how awsome vintage computer games can be. From that momment, I would never ever count out any gaming computer or gaming system that was not a huge commercial success. The Commodore Vic 20 was the little computer that did it for me.
During one of my lucky thrift runs(I was travelling about 50 miles out when gas was like, normal priced) when I cam across something I had never seen before. The computer box said Commodore on it, but it did not look like a Commodore 64. I had already maxed out my limit of what my wife could tolerate in our small apartment...but I could not resist. The sale at the Salvation Army was half of yellow sticker items...that meant that the computer would be a whole 3 bucks. Paying with some remaining change, I quickly grabbed the computer and was heading out the door. The sales clerk replied, "hey you might as well take this stuff too, as I dont know if it works". The clerk showed me some beige looking carts that look like time forgot. Seeing that I did not know what Vic 20 carts looked like, I took them.
Trying not to speed home, I quickly went into my gameroom to pray to the gaming gods that the computer worked. Opening up the box I smelled the classic odor of "new plastic" and realized that the computer looked nearly untouched. I hooked up the computer and plugged in the ugle beige cart in the back, after realizing that the cart did in fact go with the Computer. The game was Omega race, and I was pleasantly suprised about how basic yet fun the game was. I then popped in some other carts, such as Avenger, and one of my favorites "Turmoil". All it took was a twitch classic such as turmoil, and I was hooked, mostly from that fact that I had reached "totally undiscovered gaming territory".
Months went by and my desire for the system grew. With the nearly non existant demand for carts on the internet, I was snatching up carts left and right. After six months, I had amassed an impressive 100+ different carts, my favorite being Pharoh's curse, an awsome Pitfall style game that was well done on a graphically inferior system.
Even though the Vic 20 was one of my gaming casualities of moving up North(800 miles North to Washington State from Northern California) I consider the discovery of the Vic 20 a major gaming momment for me, the discovery of how awsome vintage computer games can be. From that momment, I would never ever count out any gaming computer or gaming system that was not a huge commercial success. The Commodore Vic 20 was the little computer that did it for me.