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VIC-1020, Does anyone have one of these?

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PgrAm

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In my travels through the internet I discovered this, Its an expansion chassis for the vic-20 and it seems to solve the biggest problem that I think exists for the 64/vic, the fact that all addons are external and stuff gets cluttered easily. I was just curious to see if anyone actually has one of these.

VIC-1020_a.jpg

VIC-1020_inside.jpg
 

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It looks like a cut down and repurposed wall hanging medical emergency kit, and if it's a prank I'd love to pull that prank on myself! Thanks for the idea, now to go find a box that hinges like that and make one! I think the cart load thing there would be the hardest thing to integrate, but I think I can pull it off.

I've never seen one like that, or know anybody that has one.
 
PgrAm said:
In my travels through the internet I discovered this, Its an expansion chassis for the vic-20 and it seems to solve the biggest problem that I think exists for the 64/vic, the fact that all addons are external and stuff gets cluttered easily. I was just curious to see if anyone actually has one of these.
Click to expand...

Several manufacturers made similar offerings but the 'official' Commodore one shown here is rather difficult to find. I think mine was made by a UK company called Stack. I only ever saw them for the VIC, not the 64. I assume because the use of cartridges was frequently part of a 'standard' set up, and these allowed you to have several plugged in at once and enable them in parallel. I have a feeling that this was only offered for sale in Canada and some parts of Europe but the memory cells are not what they were...

edit: Just looking at the PET chassis on the table next to me makes me wonder whether Commodore re-purposed them to make the VIC expansion chassis.
 
Several of my friends who care about VIC-20 got one, but I never invested the money to bid for one. As far as I remember, they only fit the early two-prong 9VAC VIC-20, not the later CR with DIN power. There also is the VIC-1010 that is simply an oversized cartridge expansion without the lid.

Or well.. the VIC on the pictutre looks like a CR but perhaps it is powered externally rather through the expansion box.
 
Yes, switches on the outside would have been a great addition already from the factory. While the VIC can take multiple cartridges at once, as long as they map into different parts of the memory, for average users who might have three game cartridges plugged in, some easily accessible switches would have made a lot of difference. In particular if you put your monitor or TV on top of the box and have to lift it off everytime you need to open the box to make a change.
 
Very cool - I didn't realize that C= actually made one of these. I think that the nicest ones that I've seen was a 3rd-party one made for the Apple IIgs by MDIdeas... I only saw it recently on an ebay auction that closed out at > $1500 (I was bidding on it as well, as there were several early Sierra titles included in the auction that I desperately wanted - just not badly enough, I guess!)
 
Far as i know Commodore only ever had this for the Vic (thought the 64 would physically fit the color would not match, you would have to remove the cartridge port expander, and the 64 had the Educator model to look like a Pet anyway so it wasn't really needed. The ones made that allowed you to fit in two 1541 drives by Xetec were more functional and they even had a 128 version that fit two 1571s), and multi cartridge adapters weren't as useful for the 64 anyway. The Vic, since it came with less RAM than the processor could access, could use more than one cartridge at once and this was how you would get to the max RAM for the Vic, by having a few of those RAM expanders on a cartridge port expander. A similar expander for the 64 requires access to turn on and off cartridges you don't need to use the one you do need. The 1020 I have is missing the cartridge expander which is a pity since the one it comes with, from pics I've seen, actually has a port out the back to place cartridges on and off without having to open the case. It does make the Vic look very Pet-alike so I bought it anyway and use another expander in there, or my Behr Bonz cartridge which eliminated the need to swap game carts anyway.

Also of note, the person does not have the cassette hooked up and in the case, they are just using it for storage and there are holes to run the cables out of the case to have disk, printers, cassette outside as well as to hook up the monitor. Note, the RF adapter that would hook to the top of the case near the back (the rectangular box with the chicken head logo). That connected to the Vic display port and had a hole for its RCA port right through the case cover there.
 
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