Ral-Clan
Experienced Member
Today I went to log onto a BBS using my beloved VIC-20 and wifi modem in its user port. I booted up my terminal software and typed ADTS=1 but got no local echo on screen. Uh oh. Looked at the WiModem and its OLED screen was black. Double Uh oh. Dead WiModem or bad power lines on the user port?
Disconnected the VIC-20 from monitor, disk drive, joystic, datasette (everything) and swapped in a spare VIC-20. This time only plugged in the WiModem. Turned VIC+Wimodem and turned the VIC on. Power to the WiModem....great!
One more test. Put the original VIC-20 back, but this time only plug in the WiModem. Powered it up....WiModem works! Super!
Time to set everything up again. Plugged datasette, disk drive, monitor back in. Turn the system on. Everything works! So grateful!
Oh...I see I forgot to plug my joystick back in. Turn the system off. Plug it in. Power everything up. WiModem is black again.
What? I've heard about the user port and joystick sharing the same lines on the VIC-20, and indeed, with the WiModem plugged in, sometimes it reads that as "Joystick direction down and fire" in some games....but a power issue?
I look over at the Wico bat joystick, which is sitting a few feet away. When I had first sat down to BBS, I had removed the thick vinyl dust cover from the VIC-20 and draped it over the Wico. The weight of it was causing the top button on the shaft of the Wico joystick to become depressed, causing the conflict!
Shut the system down, remove the dust cover from the joytick, power up. Everything now works as it should!
The darndest things....
Disconnected the VIC-20 from monitor, disk drive, joystic, datasette (everything) and swapped in a spare VIC-20. This time only plugged in the WiModem. Turned VIC+Wimodem and turned the VIC on. Power to the WiModem....great!
One more test. Put the original VIC-20 back, but this time only plug in the WiModem. Powered it up....WiModem works! Super!
Time to set everything up again. Plugged datasette, disk drive, monitor back in. Turn the system on. Everything works! So grateful!
Oh...I see I forgot to plug my joystick back in. Turn the system off. Plug it in. Power everything up. WiModem is black again.
What? I've heard about the user port and joystick sharing the same lines on the VIC-20, and indeed, with the WiModem plugged in, sometimes it reads that as "Joystick direction down and fire" in some games....but a power issue?
I look over at the Wico bat joystick, which is sitting a few feet away. When I had first sat down to BBS, I had removed the thick vinyl dust cover from the VIC-20 and draped it over the Wico. The weight of it was causing the top button on the shaft of the Wico joystick to become depressed, causing the conflict!
Shut the system down, remove the dust cover from the joytick, power up. Everything now works as it should!
The darndest things....
