Commodore Advert - September 1981

This is the advert that kicked off Commodore's marketing campaign in the UK for the VIC 20 - the 6502-based colour computer which became the first ever to sell a million units, and which went on to sell around 2.5 million before being discontinued in 1985.

The VIC 20 was more-or-less a colour version of 1977's Commodore PET and was relatively under-specified - even for 1981 when it was launched in the UK (it had been launched first in Japan in 1980, where it sold as the VIC-1001). However, it did have the improved version of the PET's 6502 processor in the form of the 6502A, making it somewhat faster.

Some of VIC's limitations were as a result of Commodore's re-use of stockpiled components. These included a large stash of tiny 1Kbit SRAM chips, and so the VIC ended up with not much memory as a result - having more memory would need too many chips, and so it would have been more expensive.

Meanwhile, the Video Interface Chip which gave the machine its name was also a result of re-purposing. The chips had originally been made in 1977 for potential use in games machines or as a general-purpose display driver, but never found a market.

Of the 5K RAM it did have on board, 1.5K was used by the system leaving just 3.5K for the programmer. However, memory expansion in the form of plug-in cartridges was available, and even without it was surprising what could be made to fit in such limited memory.

The VIC 20 retailed for £199 when it was released (about £950 in 2024 money), which was over twice that of a ZX-81, however it did have colour and a real keyboard, making it a popular machine.

By the end of its life, hundreds of cassette and cartridge titles were available for it and a five-year production run for the same design, barring an improved keyboard, including nearly three years of which overlapped with the Commodore 64, was an impressive-enough feat at the time

The launch of the VIC was not without its problems. Commodore's dealers had got together with a coordinated marketing campaign around the new machine, but when customers started arriving in the shops there were no machines to be had.

It was rumoured that the delay was due to the fact that the VIC's power-supply socket was too similar to the shaver sockets found in German hotels, which was considered to be unacceptable for machine built in Germany.

The power supply of the early VICs also contained a flaw and, although "only a few dozen" had got further than the dealers before the problem was discovered, Commodore nevertheless recalled the first batch of VIC-20s so that the faulty components could be replaced^[1].

Germany was also implicated in slow delivery of the VIC - known there as the Volks Computer, on account of Vic being close to the German word for Onanism - where apparently one of the many explanations floating around for delays was "the mysterious loss of a lorry-load of VIC chips en route to the West German factory"^[2].