Fuze Computer and Video Game Museum

Commodore VIC Series

VIC20
Manufacturer Commodore
Equipment Type Computer
Model Name VIC20
Family Name Commodore VIC Series
Years
CPU 6502
Clock Speed 1.108 MHz (PAL) / 1.02 MHz (NTSC)
RAM 3.5 KB
Original Price $299.95
Units Sold 2.5 million

Description

With the price of hardware declining Commodore saw an opportunity to expand their market by making a computer that was not only cheaper than the PET but more powerful. Commodore managed this by making making the cassette drive external and having the computer connect to a TV rather than having a built in monitor, while there was no built in cassette player there was a cartridge slot which allowed games to load up quickly but were a lot more expensive than cassettes so most people bought a cassette drive to play games. The hardware was improved by offering multiple colours instead of just green and having a more conventional keyboard than the one on the PET which used the same keys as Commodore’s calculators. The VIC-20 was the first computer to sell over a million units with many praising it for making computers more accessable.

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