VIC-20 setup

[Mayhem]

A little while ago my brother's girlfriend happened to see my C64 and said she had one of them in her loft that she used to use when she was younger. Now she's had a chance to go up and look, it actually turns out it was a Vic-20 instead. So she's brought round the machine (still fully boxed and complete!), tape deck, some tapes and 3 carts. Now she said she couldn't get 2 of them to work, my suspicion is (as I haven't gone through the items yet) is that they don't have a memory expansion for the machine.

So where's the easiest place to get a 16k RAM expansion... eBay? Any particular make I should look out for to get?

Now I'm seriously thinking about starting collecting for this machine, seeing as it's the C64's partner in crime. Plus some great game to get for it also. Erm... lack of room... erm... what the heck...

Okay, so any tips, thoughts or suggestions welcome on collecting!

[CrazyImpmon]

Memory expension is nearly useless when playing any cart games. Both happens to plug in the same port so that leaves 2 likely options:

First option would be...
(entire DP forum all at once) Clean the contacts!

And if that doesn't work, the cart could be fried. Static electricity can kill even most durable ROM chip.

[Mayhem]

I thought the memory expansion for Vic20 had a slot to put carts into that. Well it goes to show how much I don't remember from mates having the machine when I was younger! I will go and try stuff out of course and see what happens. The contacts on the carts look pretty much clean to me, hardly seen use...

[Raedon]

funny that i know so much about the c64 and Amiga but absolutely nothing about the VIC 20.

[video_game_addict]

First guess, Dirty contacts

Second guess, She has 2 of the Scott Adams text adventures, and she has to type "SYS 32592" before the game will start.

[Keir]

I've noticed that the VIC-20 cart slot is really tight and sometimes you just need to push harder than you would with another system and maybe wiggle it a bit to get it to work. Never actually found a cart that didn't work, nor have I ever had to clean one.

[Mayhem]

Yes, this is my observation too Keir. The carts she has are by Thorn EMI, notorious for being tight fits. A bit of pushing and in they went. And played fine! My guess is that they didn't push hard enough to get all the way in before...

Right there's a bundle of Vic20 carts on eBay UK with my name of them this afternoon...

[CrazyImpmon]

First guess, Dirty contacts

Second guess, She has 2 of the Scott Adams text adventures, and she has to type "SYS 32592" before the game will start.

I know it had been too long since I've touched a Vic-20. I forgot about some games requiring you to manually start it.

[theaveng]

I see that VIC-20 RAM's expansion goes up to 48K. Is t hat the absolute maximum?

The absolute max for C=64/128 is 512K, correct?

[CrazyImpmon]

I don't know what's the max RAM expansion exists for Vic-20 but 48K is bigger than the ones I'm aware of. (16K was the one I'm thinking BTW)

C64 can only address up to 64K without bankswitching software (like GEOS) and the max RAM expansion have been in a few MB range (via RAMLink and a few 30 pin SIMMs). 640K was the max made by CBM though.

[carlsson]

VIC-20: Normally 32K (of which 24K continuous) expansions are the largest ones. Officially 35K unconnected address space, plus maybe 2K unused I/O space, but that would be a very odd setup. Larger memory expansions means bank switching, just like on the C64, but manually IIUC.