Hey Ken, I watched this video 14 hours ago but I came back to leave you a comment ;) This in my opinion is your best video to date, I laughed on more than one occasion and your research is really good. I imagine that it took quite a while to put together. I agree that it's crazy that they made the cartridge way too thick to fit in a VIC (it defies belief) but I'd bet that they designed it and forgot the cover, it's the kind of thing that I'd do. Keep up the great work, your channel has huge potential. Oh, and hello to Shadow ;)
Not all VIC 20s have the same size cartridge slot, or even the same size case, some are taller than others. I only have one VIC20 unpacked at the moment, but I checked the height of the slot on that one, and it was 22mm - easily enough for that cartridge to fit, and indeed I have no problem with my UMI cartridges fitting in.
I was using the Penultimate in the cartridge slot and accessing the Pi1541 through the Penultimates menu (same way you would access a regular disk drive).
I had a Vic 20, this was back when game code was printed ini magazines, I spent all night typing a game into the Vic only to get an error when I ran it
I did that as well, although I had a TRS80 Colour Computer 2 and an Apple 2 growing up. What I really hated was typing something in and not being able to get it working then the next months magazine had a correction for the program as they apologize that due to the mistake, the program was never going to work without the new code!
This reminds me of when Atari released the Atari 1200XL, original Atari brown carts were a tight fit and many third party carts did not fit at all... Even the later XE style v1 carts were a tight fit. But either way, it looks like a decent game... Have you tried the other UMI games? Great video as always! looking forward to your next video!
The only other UMI game I have tried is AMOK, which is a Bezerk clone. It would have been nice if they made carts to the smallest common denominator, then they would all fit!
My UMI carts fit fine in my first model VIC-20 (two prong PSU connector) but they don't fit in my CR version (round DIN connector). My presumption is that, as others have suggested, they designed the cart to fit the original machine only to be scuppered when the CR model was released. :)
Yeah there were a lot of Vic20 carts in unusual sizes. I remember the games by iMagic like “Demon Attack” and “Dragon Fire” were on small black carts. Also I had some Sega Vic20 games believe it or not like “Buck Rogers” and “Star Trek” that came on these nice rounded rectangular shaped carts with smooth edges.
I'd almost put money on the fact that they eyeballed the height of the cartridge port at about ¾" and didn't factor in leaving plenty of headroom like they should've.
It sounds like there are some VIC models with enough room for this, they probably didn't take into account (or didn't know there were) different models with smaller cartridge ports.
The problem with too much headroom is that you then have difficulty getting the cartridge board lined up with the port slot. Old school cartridges needed to have pretty tight tolerances to insert easily.
@@IsaacKuo I think it is more the space at the bottom. The Commodore released cartridges have the exact amount of room at the bottom so the cartridge slides along the bottom plate and lines up perfectly with lots of headroom (a couple of mm at least.)
I have Meteor Run though the cartridge has fallen apart. I remember that cool box art. Also I tried very hard to get to the red star and then decided to cheat by changing the direction of the asteroids with the space bar to hit the aliens while my ship hadn't reappeared on the screen after dying. After getting to a crazy high score, like a million? I gave up seeing any red star. Asteroids don't get any more dense either. Amok I played off a cassette which i recall was fun.
I have thought about that, but the cartridge appears to be glued shut so opening it will probably destroy the case. Since I have the game on other media I will probably opt to keep it original.
Question on the cartridge internals, did it need a case that large? Is that cartridge size compatible with anything else (a job lot of cheap cartridges that were bought up?)
Not sure about the internals, I am still debating myself on weather to open it. The cartridge is glued shut and the plastic is brittle, opening it will almost surely destroy the cartridge.
BTW, you hit F7 to switch left/right direction. That may sound goofy, but the original arcade game of Defender had a reverse button. I have a Meteor Run cart, but packaging and instructions? Long gone. I never had any particular difficulties inserting the cartridge, other than the narrow width making aligning it a little more difficult. (My only VIC-20 is an early NTSC model with "PET" style keyboard and two prong power supply, no rainbow on the commodore vic20 top sticker.)
When UMI made the carts they presumably just used one standard Vic-20 for measuring the scale of the cartridges, intentionally not knowing that in different regions or countries manufacturers were using cost reduced moulds and methods. Copyright laws were eforced for hardware and software back in the 80's (espeacially heavily apple, Atari and commodore) Another thing I would like to bring up is the copyright design of cartridges by commodore woud of legally challanged similarities of hardware but not essentially software which was licenced by commdore or the software company that designed the games. So basically UMI cartridges became clone rip-offs of original Vic Hardware/s.
My guess is the same that they made it fit one specific VIC with the width of the cart. With the copyright, any other third party cartridges I have seen all have almost the same dimensions as original Commodore cart, this is the only vastly different one (company) I have seen.
![🇺🇸 Commodore VIC-20 for the Ham Shack: Part 1 (First Look) [TCE #0445]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Lky3se7i1yI/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey Ken, I watched this video 14 hours ago but I came back to leave you a comment ;) This in my opinion is your best video to date, I laughed on more than one occasion and your research is really good. I imagine that it took quite a while to put together. I agree that it's crazy that they made the cartridge way too thick to fit in a VIC (it defies belief) but I'd bet that they designed it and forgot the cover, it's the kind of thing that I'd do. Keep up the great work, your channel has huge potential. Oh, and hello to Shadow ;)
Thanks Peter!
Not all VIC 20s have the same size cartridge slot, or even the same size case, some are taller than others. I only have one VIC20 unpacked at the moment, but I checked the height of the slot on that one, and it was 22mm - easily enough for that cartridge to fit, and indeed I have no problem with my UMI cartridges fitting in.
Interesting, I wonder how many size variations are out there?
Cool and interesting video. How did you get the Penultimate cartridge on your drive emulator? Thanks for sharing
I was using the Penultimate in the cartridge slot and accessing the Pi1541 through the Penultimates menu (same way you would access a regular disk drive).
I had a Vic 20, this was back when game code was printed ini magazines, I spent all night typing a game into the Vic only to get an error when I ran it
I did that as well, although I had a TRS80 Colour Computer 2 and an Apple 2 growing up. What I really hated was typing something in and not being able to get it working then the next months magazine had a correction for the program as they apologize that due to the mistake, the program was never going to work without the new code!
This reminds me of when Atari released the Atari 1200XL, original Atari brown carts were a tight fit and many third party carts did not fit at all... Even the later XE style v1 carts were a tight fit.
But either way, it looks like a decent game... Have you tried the other UMI games?
Great video as always! looking forward to your next video!
The only other UMI game I have tried is AMOK, which is a Bezerk clone. It would have been nice if they made carts to the smallest common denominator, then they would all fit!
My UMI carts fit fine in my first model VIC-20 (two prong PSU connector) but they don't fit in my CR version (round DIN connector). My presumption is that, as others have suggested, they designed the cart to fit the original machine only to be scuppered when the CR model was released. :)
I guess I need to collect more VIC 20 models:)
@@CanadianRetroThings Good idea. One can't have too many VIC's!
Yeah there were a lot of Vic20 carts in unusual sizes. I remember the games by iMagic like “Demon Attack” and “Dragon Fire” were on small black carts. Also I had some Sega Vic20 games believe it or not like “Buck Rogers” and “Star Trek” that came on these nice rounded rectangular shaped carts with smooth edges.
@@TCPhil-Gaming The unusual Vic20 carts are my favorite to collect
I'd almost put money on the fact that they eyeballed the height of the cartridge port at about ¾" and didn't factor in leaving plenty of headroom like they should've.
It sounds like there are some VIC models with enough room for this, they probably didn't take into account (or didn't know there were) different models with smaller cartridge ports.
The problem with too much headroom is that you then have difficulty getting the cartridge board lined up with the port slot. Old school cartridges needed to have pretty tight tolerances to insert easily.
@@IsaacKuo I think it is more the space at the bottom. The Commodore released cartridges have the exact amount of room at the bottom so the cartridge slides along the bottom plate and lines up perfectly with lots of headroom (a couple of mm at least.)
I have Meteor Run though the cartridge has fallen apart. I remember that cool box art. Also I tried very hard to get to the red star and then decided to cheat by changing the direction of the asteroids with the space bar to hit the aliens while my ship hadn't reappeared on the screen after dying. After getting to a crazy high score, like a million? I gave up seeing any red star. Asteroids don't get any more dense either. Amok I played off a cassette which i recall was fun.
I have read a couple of posts about trying to make it to the Red Star but never finding it. I have tried Amok, it is a better game IMO.
Oh, I have Renaissance too. It's Othello and I enjoyed it a lot back in the day.@@CanadianRetroThings
Sit UMI Sit, Good Dog.... No that's Not Right
OK, THAT made me laugh!!
@@CanadianRetroThings Now I Gotta go Watch Family Ties....
I wonder if the PCB could be put into a regular VIC-20 cartridge shell.
I have thought about that, but the cartridge appears to be glued shut so opening it will probably destroy the case. Since I have the game on other media I will probably opt to keep it original.
Question on the cartridge internals, did it need a case that large? Is that cartridge size compatible with anything else (a job lot of cheap cartridges that were bought up?)
Not sure about the internals, I am still debating myself on weather to open it. The cartridge is glued shut and the plastic is brittle, opening it will almost surely destroy the cartridge.
BTW, you hit F7 to switch left/right direction. That may sound goofy, but the original arcade game of Defender had a reverse button.
I have a Meteor Run cart, but packaging and instructions? Long gone.
I never had any particular difficulties inserting the cartridge, other than the narrow width making aligning it a little more difficult.
(My only VIC-20 is an early NTSC model with "PET" style keyboard and two prong power supply, no rainbow on the commodore vic20 top sticker.)
It sounds like the 2 prong style cases had a little more room in the cartridge slot height. They probably used it as a model for making the cartridge.
You really ought to have more subscribers than you do, given the quality of your content. RUclips is a cruel mistress.
Thanks! I am having fun doing these so views are a great bonus.
When UMI made the carts they presumably just used one standard Vic-20 for measuring the scale of the cartridges, intentionally not knowing that in different regions or countries manufacturers were using cost reduced moulds and methods. Copyright laws were eforced for hardware and software back in the 80's (espeacially heavily apple, Atari and commodore) Another thing I would like to bring up is the copyright design of cartridges by commodore woud of legally challanged similarities of hardware but not essentially software which was licenced by commdore or the software company that designed the games. So basically UMI cartridges became clone rip-offs of original Vic Hardware/s.
My guess is the same that they made it fit one specific VIC with the width of the cart. With the copyright, any other third party cartridges I have seen all have almost the same dimensions as original Commodore cart, this is the only vastly different one (company) I have seen.
That game looks like the coco's Galatic Fighter
YES! That's why it felt sum what familiar!
Time to go to PCBWay and create a cartridge port extender!
That's a good idea!
You should try Star Defence/Defender by Anirog if you like Defender-style games.
I will have to try it!
super amok was a very good game from UMI for the vic 20
I have played Amok which is not bad, I'll have to try Super Amok now!
Roger Merritt? Didn't he form Merritt Industries? Makers of Arcade Video Games?
Not sure if it is the same person, the one that worked for/with UMI made 5 games for them and has middle initial L.
Perhaps they put as much attention to detail in the cart design as they did to spelling 'Copyright' on the title screen!
As a very bad speller myself (but not THAT bad) a always miss the spelling mistakes, thanks for pointing it out!
More Shadow content. 💙
If I can get her to sit still long enough!