Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Fester on March 20, 2007, 09:36:14 PM
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The Vic-20 is a good childhood memory for me. It was the first 'puter I ever set my eyes on.
Dan Tynan, PC World remembers it differently. :-)
The 10 Worst PCs of All Time (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031900296.html)
Fester
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I didn't think that the VIC-20 was so bad for its day. I think the article is unfair.
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the vic 20 is a cool machine too..i still use it time to time
and in that time it was the best u could get
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No mention of the creaking Spectrum +2A? What about the Commodore Plus 4 or the Sinclair PC200?
All much more worthy than the VIC of a place in the list of shame.
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Yeah, I think the VIC got a bad rap, there. Sure, it was underpowered, even for the time, but it was cheap and easy to use. It also paved the way for the C64, which was probably the single most important computer of its time.
If they had to pick a Commodore product, there were tons more worthy. The +4 as someone already mentioned was quite a useless machine. The Amiga 600 would be another fine choice. Any machine that is less powerful and less compatible than the one it was supposed to replace sounds like a winner in this competition...
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C16 or Plus/4 were much worse. And, how dare he insult Captain Kirk!
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The Vic-20 was crummy, but I don't think it deserves to be in the worst 10. Where's the sinclair, Colt PC10, plus 4, the 80186 PC clone (yup I worked on those) and especially the tandy "color computer I"? The tandy also came with 4K mem, but had ever poorer support than the Vic. Both the Vic and tandy could get more memory installed BTW. I would probably put Vic some where around 20-25th worst.
Plaz
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This one about the apple III is hillarious:
"users were supposed to pick up the machine and drop it to re-seat the chips. List prices between $4300 and $7400, depending on configuration, only added to the misery."
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:madashell: The VIC is a great machine.
I still use it to create electrical engineering courses documents and images with the super expander cartridge.
I also make this: http://www.eskimo.com/~areed/vic/supervic_cartridge.htm
I also think the fact that it was so underpowered forced people to exhibit a lot of resourcefulness when programming it.
Look at Windows Vista and see what happens when people have just too much memory and processing power to waste... bloatware!
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This article wasn't fair on the old VIC-20. This was my first computer and obviously the writer was a bit hazy about what computers were competing with the VIC at that time. In the UK, the main competion was the ZX81 which was monochrome, had a membrane "keyboard" and came with a whopping 1KB of RAM. Suddenly the VIC's 3.5KB looks huge.
According to the article, most other computers came with "16KB of RAM". Hmmm... if I remember correctly, a 16KB RAM was available for the ZX81 at a cost of about 3 times that of the computer and due to the iffy connection to the computer (it looked like a pack of cigarettes stick onto a VHS video tape when attached) it could cause the ZX81 to crash if you jolted the computer.
Anyway, I used my VIC with a "Super Expander" for an extra 3KB of RAM (I think), additional BASIC commands and "high res" graphics.
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eslapion wrote:
I also make this: http://www.eskimo.com/~areed/vic/supervic_cartridge.htm
That's sweet. I'd have killed for one of them back in my VIC days. By the way, my VIC-20 still works after all these years, but is in storage at my brother's house in the UK. He should still have my Super Expander too.
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I still have a Vic-20, and it was one of my first computers. Lets face it fellows, it _was_ crap. Fond memories of it doesnt make it a better computer :-)
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The Vic-20 was OK, at least you can do SOMETHING with it. Play games, code, whatever. I never owned one, but used one at my friends house, including playing with one in the Vice emulator. I've tried worse:
I once owned a zx81 (http://www.elektronik.zolls-im-netz.de/c-one/zx81/zx81.gif), now that was crap. The socalled keyboard wore out, so you had to really squeeze your finger really hard in order to get a response. It also came with 1kB RAM and was terribly slow despite its 3.25MHz Z80.
Why that one is not on top of the list is beyond me.
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Around 1984 I also built a 20k expansion out of spare parts from work for my Vic to make it more use-able. But the 20 charater display was really it's weakest point. I'd have to say that's probably why it wound up in this guys worst 10. At the time I much prefered a pixelated monocrome 80 char displays over what the Vic had. Sure some of the games were OK, but I got more fun out of my Atari 2600 and quarters at the arcade than the Vic.
Plaz
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I LOVED my Vic 20 - After that I had an Commodore 16 :-P ... And then it went all Amiga for me... I skiped the C64 back then ;-)
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Come on guys! We all know that "Blue Meanies" was the best game ever made for any platform. :-D
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...meh meh, the article is unfair, the Vic-20 is great...
It's an opinionated technology internet survey. I try to find out what is more grating, hearing people steam because their computer, hobby, drink, vice is/isn't on a best/worst list. Maybe it's trying to listen to Nintendo Wii fanboy boys whine about the Power Glove, and how it's suppose to be like their Wii.
At least they got the Packard Bell right. I used to have a Legend 20CD(I got that sucker used when I was 15)
That's right.
Intell 66Mhz
4 meg onboard
Slow 4x CD
Crappy Reveal Audio
Cirrus Logic icky graphics
Something like a 80meg hard drive?
2400 baud modem, that I stopped using and went to a 14.4 then 28.8 modem.
Funky Monitor with the side speakers.
All packing Windows 3.11.
Sure I COULD be all nostalgic and say how I was able to squeeze Photoshop performance out of it (yes I did). I was able to make signs with clip art for people in Corel Draw. I even did stuff with Autodesk Animator. With all that, I know it was a crappy system. I'm not going to sugar coat it and lie.
At least that dirty girl got me my money before I passed her diseased self off to someone else (which I sold it to them )
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Definately unfair. When the Vic20 came out in 1980, it was the first computer with color for under $300. Granted anyone buying it for productivity would be disapointed compared to a CP/M system of the era, but those were 10 times (or more) more expensive. The target market was the home, a multipurpose computer that was affordable.
Crap article, crap list. Show me a single system from that era with better specs that was even in the ballpark price range of the Vic. Garbage, they should have listed the Commodore 16, B128, Plus4 or even the Amiga 600 before the Vic20 :-x
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The VIC-20 was and is a GREAT computer. You have to look at it in the context of when it was sold. It was the first, cheap and CAPABLE colour computer marketed to the masses. It's incredibly useful and the games released for it were just as good as anything else around in 1982. It was an amazing value for the price and better than anything else in its price bracket (until the C64 was released).
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VIC-20 was an OK machine. I would replace its entry on the list with the original Apple Mac, I mean at least the VIC-20 had colour, it was much more competitively priced too and had more games for it! There were many other computers around at the same time which were considerably less powerful.
Amiga 600 is OK too, most of the complaints against it seem to be that since it ran OS2.0 it wouldn't run some Amiga 500 games which were written in a lame hardware-banging manner. The same criticism could be applied to Amiga 500+, 1200, 3000, 4000, etc.: it's really a criticism of the game library rather than the machines themselves, so I'm not sure why the A600 is always singled out for martyrdom. A600 was considerably more powerful than an A500: eg. more memory, built-in modulator, PCMCIA slot, more compact form factor, optional built-in hard disk, better OS, etc. The price point was pretty impressive too: I remember they could be bought new with hard disk for about $A400, at a time when virtually every other computer on the market was over $A1000.
I wonder why there are no Wang machines on the list, they were dismal.
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I will definatly have to disagree with the part about the Vic-20. I think the only thing in its price range was the Timex Sinclair 1000 (ZX81) and that machine was WAY worse than the Vic-20. At least the Vic-20 had color and graphics with capability for a disk drive and a real printer. Both came with a similar amount of RAM, and needed to be expanded. But the Sinclair had a terrible problem with the ram expander's connector. If you barely touched the computer too hard while it was on, the expander module would move and cause the computer to lock up. So the Sinclair was actually more usable WITHOUT the expander installed.. And at least the Vic-20 had a real keyboard and a joystick port!
WHAT THEY DID GET RIGHT:
The Apple III - for sure!
The emachines - OH YEAH! I used to work on these things and they had dismal failure rates on the power supplies. In fact, the computer store I worked for searched long and hard at the time to find a supplier of those little proprietary power supplies.. We finnally found one and bought up around 40 a month. Half of those we sold to customers and the other half we used ourselves to fix all the ones being brought in for repair!
Packard Bells - Oh yes.. these were crap. Actually some of them weren't too bad, the main problems were the modem/sound board combos and the crappy-ass software included on the machine.
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Vic 20 was and still is a great computer. I still use the Vic-20, C64, and amigas almost daily. I think now that I can connect them to the PC as a hard drive makes them even more fun and useful now than ever. Anyone care for a game of Miner 2049'er.. :-D
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adric22 wrote:The emachines - OH YEAH! I used to work on these things and they had dismal failure rates on the power supplies. In fact, the computer store I worked for searched long and hard at the time to find a supplier of those little proprietary power supplies.. We finnally found one and bought up around 40 a month. Half of those we sold to customers and the other half we used ourselves to fix all the ones being brought in for repair!
I had 2 of them in my house for a long time; a #366 and a #400 series and both of them soldiered on for ages. My kids had one and my wife had the other. They eventually ended up in the garbage not because they stopped working, but rather because they were replaced. I was lucky I guess. :-)
Packard Bells - Oh yes.. these were crap. Actually some of them weren't too bad, the main problems were the modem/sound board combos and the crappy-ass software included on the machine.
I used to sell Packard Bell computers back in '97. I think you got what you paid for. That modem/sound card combo was a pain. The first ones I sold has a 28.8 modem and I quickly discovered that the Packard Bell restore disk with that model (and some others) looked for a PB Combo Card attached in order to identify a "legal" system for restoring. If you had removed it and replaced it with a 56K modem and new sound card then you go the infamous "This restore disk is only for use on Packard Bell systems" error message.
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Rabbi wrote:
I didn't think that the VIC-20 was so bad for its day. I think the article is unfair.
Yup me too. I still remember it as the toy that got me interested in computers.
I visited a small security outfit once that was still using the Vic-20 to operate their systems. I'm not sure in what capacity that was. There was a wall of flickering switches and two Vic-20s fitted on the desk in front of it. That was back in the early 90s.
Speaking of PCs, was that term coined yet when the Vic-20 came out?
Fester
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in my opinion the guy who made the ranking could not realize that while kids of the time were playing with the Atari 2600 there were guys that needed more than a simple cartige videogmae so Vic 20 was a good choice!
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yeah i mean the vic 20 is what doommaster started on so it cant be bad! :-D
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the only thing i didnt like about the vic20 and later the c64 was the fat case. the keyboards where probably the biggest draw. and with carts the vic20 didnt need a real lot of ram especially since with the display you wouldnt do much serious work with it anyway
i jumped on the 64c's sleek cool case
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Most of the respondants for the survey probably aren't old enough to have ever even used one, much less been around for the impact when they were introduced...
Just the press being the worthless anal discharge that it is.
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Gotta say, I'm surprised at the bad feeling against the A600. I like mine, and, until I get a laptop to run Amithlon, it's the most portable Amiga I have.