VIC-20 Cartridge Rarity & Gameplay listing

Version 1.9m, released June 6, 1998

By Ward F. Shrake and Paul A. Le Brasse

Proofread and converted to HTML by Marko Mäkelä on April 26, 1998

Visit "VIC-20 Digital Archaeology" on the web: http://members.aol.com/wshrake/index.htm Also be sure to check out: ftp.funet.fi

In the spirit of the "friendly computer", this document may be freely copied and/or used by anyone who wishes to do so. We do ask that you give the authors credit by name if and when you use this listing in any other context. Thanks in advance!

Notes about this document

This text lists all the cartridge software that we believe now exists for the VIC-20 home computer system. This is the latest revision of a document that has been steadily evolving since 1995.

We broke this document into many different categories. This reflects the idea that, since this is a Digital Archaeology project, and we are in essence digging this stuff up from a nearly forgotten past, that we are more sure that some carts truly exist than we are of other carts.

Paul LeBrasse and I (Ward Shrake) spent a summer collecting and then digitally copying every single cartridge that is listed in the first part of this list. Therefore, we know that these carts truly exist.

The "classic era" was famous for vaporware. That is, some company would publicly announce that they were going to make some product. They might take out ads in magazines, or just send out a written press release. Then they would, for various reasons, never actually release the item. Especially at the end of the Vic20's market lifetime, many odd things happened. Some companies changed their minds, while others found that they did not have the money to put something on the market. Some titles intended for cart release only made it out as tapes. And of course some titles never made it because their parent company went out of business.

Obviously, we want to make sure such titles are not confused with or intermingled with carts that we know, positively, exist in some form. If for no other reason, why subject cart collectors to frustration?

My point is that simply seeing some ink on paper is not proof that something does exist. At the same time, not being able to easily find a copy of something does not necessarily rule out that at least one copy was made. Paul and I have often been tempted to dismiss some title as being simply a figment of some company's imagination, when someone on the net suddenly announces that they've found one somewhere. (I just announced "list stagnation" when three such titles popped up.) With uncertainty in both directions, I felt we needed some way to display a hierarchy of certainty, along with the usual notations of rarity.

Anyone familiar with game cartridge collecting knows that the generally accepted method is to use rarity codes. We used these, obviously, but I felt that something more was needed, to separate the wheat and chaff.

So from this revision onwards, if a cart is included in the first part of this listing, that means that (a) the cart definitely does exist and that we are sure of this because (b) we have a digital copy of it. These digital copies (ROM images) are all or mostly to be found at various spots on the Internet; check out ftp.funet.fi or use a search engine.

In the past revisions of this list, the first section had included many carts that were confirmed by someone, but that no ROM image existed to prove it. With this revision of the list, any such cart (confirmed but not archived yet) is included in the second part of this listing, not the first part. This just seems logical. When half the list was in that boat, doing things the old way made sense. With only a handful of carts now confirmed-but-unarchived, this way currently makes more sense. I both suspect and hope that more carts will trickle in from time to time. We seem to be well into diminishing returns, but haven't found it all.

Of note here is that most of the other "classic" era videogame machines (Atari 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, etc) have had a group of very serious cartridge collectors throughout their complete lifetimes. The lists of what is or ever was available for those systems has long been established, due to this continuing collection effort among many people.

The Vic20, on the other hand, was killed off in popularity by its parent company in an effort to get the market to upgrade to the Commodore 64. There has only been a serious effort to dig up the Vic20's software in the last two years or so. The "more popular" gaming systems have done so continuously since the early 1980's.

That may sound like whining; in fact, I'm probably bragging about how well our little group of digital archaeologists managed to do. I will note here that even some of the people who had once written Vic20 games have said that until we dug this stuff back up, even they did not have copies of the games that they themselves had created! And once we made the software library available to others all over the globe, I was pleasantly surprised to see that software emulators were written to take advantage of all that software. I'm pleased how things are going.

Please note that many other documents exist, that modern Vic20 users or computer historians may find useful or interesting. These can all be found on the Internet. (I wrote many of them myself, since very little other information about the Vic20 was freely available at the time.) Among these available documents are a Frequently Asked Questions text, various technical documents and archiving utility programs, a list of 450+ Vic20 cassette tape games, and more. Cartzilla is a huge text that I finished up now, and have released on the Internet. It takes this list farther; it actually reviews and discusses 182 known Vic20 carts.

All in all the Vic20 community seems to be doing very well. Enjoy it!

Ward F. Shrake and Paul A. Le Brasse

Contents

1. Explanation of codes used
2. The Commodore Vic-20 Cartridge List
3. Confirmed but unarchived cartridges
4. Vaporware section
5. Hardware section
6. Utility cartridges
7. RAM expansion memory cartridges
8. Expansion chassis or "motherboards"
9. Info you can help us to find, to fill in some blanks

Explanation of codes used

(Some may differ from what you're used to.)

S Super-Common

Reserved for a few carts that seem to show up everywhere, always. No shortage of these! These could be great on gameplay, so don't be harsh...

C Common

Generally a semi easy-to-find Vic20 cartridge... but Vic20's might be harder to find than carts for other classic systems, at least at present.

U Uncommon

This means average/middle difficulty in finding.

R Rare

Takes a bit of hard work to locate one of these. You'll probably end up searching the Internet for it unless you get really lucky on a thrifting trip.

ER Extremely Rare

Nearly impossible to find. May be frustrating! We reserved this category for carts we've only seen 1 or 2 of total, everywhere we've looked. More could show up in time, as more people start to collect for the Vic20. For now, its difficult.

PR Prototype only

This category is new, as of version 18.8 of this list. It describes carts that, so far as we can tell, were never released as a production item but that do definitely exist in prototype form. Needless to say, these carts are incredibly rare.

NR Never Released

We used to use this category when we had seen or heard of a cart that might exist. Please note that we handle them differently now. We first put them in the separate "vaporware" section until someone out there finds one, at which time we move it up to "confirmed but unarchived" on a verbal confirmation. They climb up to the upper section of this list only when we have digitally archived the cart's ROM image for posterity. (In other words, if it is in the upper part of this list, you can likely find a ROM image for it on the Internet, no matter how rare or unique a cart may be. And yes, there are Vic20 emulators, too.)

The Commodore Vic-20 Cartridge List

(Note that Xonox carts sometimes came two-per-case, as "double-enders". The initials shown above show what cart was paired with what other cart. Part numbers shown above are for the double-ender versions. Cliff Gregory positively confirmed all but Tomarc and Sir Lancelot as single-enders; he and I both assume they were made as singles. Tomarc must have been, as it has no other cart to pair it with, unless there is another double combo?)

Confirmed but unarchived cartridges

Vaporware section

Hardware section

Please note that many of the items found below are pure hardware, or are at least more firmware than software. Some of them are just plain hard to categorize. Because Jim Brain already maintains a huge list of every single thing that Commodore ever put out, I see no reason to try to duplicate those existing efforts here. This is Vic20 cartridge-port-only stuff. (Note that even then, there are grey areas to consider.)

Utility cartridges, etc

RAM expansion memory cartridges

Note: I'll just briefly say that this section really needs a lot of work, and leave it at that. Any added information is welcome!

Expansion chassis or "motherboards"

(Please note that we are just now beginning to list any features that may have been on these items. More may exist on each item.)

Info you can help us to find, to fill in some blanks

Missing carts

If you actually own a cart that is not shown somewhere in our lists, up above, please let Ward know about it, and he'll add it to this listing. But remember to check the other sections out, if you have a utility or hardware type item, as these are not generally shown in the top section. The top section is only for archived software cartridges, followed by vaporware listings, then hardware, utilities, RAM expanders, et cetera.

Part numbers

In various places there are blank or incomplete part numbers shown. If we knew them, we'd list them. But we don't, just yet. Some manufacturers listed no part numbers on the carts themselves, but listed these on the package's outer box instead. Atarisoft did this for sure. Creative seems to be another one. Ditto for Sirius and Parker Brothers. Starting with version 1.8 of this list, I've made educated (but incomplete) guesses for some company lists, based on their patterns for other systems. If you have any original software boxes, or other paperwork, help us all out on this. Paul and I went through our collections long ago, so it is up to you now!

Information about certain rumored carts

For instance, there are four holes in Commodore's numbers series. We hope to at least find out what names Commodore planned to call these releases. (And whatever else we can find out about them, of course.) One of the big reasons I want to find part numbers for each cart, is to find gaps in that company's product line, which would tell us we haven't found everything for that company, just yet. Look at the gaps for HES, for instance. We have eight empty holes that we know of, but only four carts with no part numbers. Obviously, we seem to be missing at least four HES carts, right? Look at Atarisoft. Now that we have all the numbers for them, a pattern emerges. (They skip numbers by threes; 1, 4, 7, 10....) The part numbers seem to back up the idea that four more carts were once planned, and we do have four Atarisoft carts listed under vaporware, so that matches too. These are just examples, but you get the idea. If you run across anyone who has things like old magazines or catalogs, brochures or what not, see if there is any info in them that we have not listed. If you happen to know anyone you can ask, don't be shy! As time goes on, and we talk to some of the original programmers and such, it is becoming increasingly obvious that human memory is not perfect. Many things are being lost to the ravages of time. Let's find all we can, before it disappears forever!

Confirmations of vaporware software

If you now actually own a real cartridge of a program we listed in our "vaporware" section of the list, let Paul or Ward know about it. We have only the information we listed, at this time. Many of the rarer carts we initially felt were "NR" (never released) did show up in time. However we are highly cautious about old memories of what might have been. We do insist that confirmations be made only when a person physically owns one. And of course, if it is not anywhere on our lists, and you're sure its not a cartridge for some other gaming system, please, tell us about it!

A select few "ROM images" that are not yet archived

We have successfully archived most of the "confirmed" carts above. A few still remain elusive. Paul and I both can digitally copy these in moments, if we had a copy loaned to us. Failing that, the owners of the carts will have to do it themselves. As there are still many "vaporware" carts that may turn out to have at least one copy in existence, somewhere, I wrote a text document that explains the technical process of archiving these old Vic20 cartridges. I even wrote software to make the job easier. (But please, follow in our footsteps and act responsibly when archiving.) If anyone gets ahold of ROM images that are not in the current archives, please pass them on to the appropriate web or FTP sites for distribution.

Some recent loans from kind folks on the Internet... Patrick Wickwire loaned his Cyclon cart for archiving purposes. If it isn't the only one out, it is still remarkably rare! Tom Truszkowski loaned us his "Victerm 40" in prototype form, complete with handwritten label. That one is now archived, too. "Uncle Roger" Sinasohn loaned two carts; Dot Gobbler and Fun with Music by Epyx. Dot Gobbler was a production cart, but I've only heard of maybe three collectors having a copy, in all the years I've been looking for Vic20 carts. Fun with Music was so rare that I'd never heard a single mention of it being available for the Vic20, until this one got loaned to us! Cliff Gregory loaned me two real rarities: Amazing Maze and Bug Crusher. Without the kindness of dedicated fans like these people, the Vic20 cart archiving project would be standing still. Thanks for all your help, folks!

Pictures of box art, cartridges, tapes, whatever

The short story on this is to tell you that there is a CD-ROM project going on, and to check Ward's web page for all the details. A few of us are pooling our resources, taking some time, and planning to put all sorts of Vic20 artwork onto a CD-ROM, readable by common web browsers. To see a current list of what we have already, and what we still need, please visit <URL:http://members.aol.com/wshrake/cdhaves.htm>. (Ward's main web page is at <URL:http://members.aol.com/wshrake/index.htm>.)

In closing

Digital Archaeology is an interesting hobby. Other gaming systems have dedicated fan followings, who eventually track down all sorts of neat info about the games released for their favorite gaming systems. That is what I hope will continue to happen for the Vic20, both in stories and items. The "big three" console game systems (Atari 2600 VCS, Colecovision, and Intellivision) have fan followings that get to celebrate, from time to time, someone's finding of a rumored-but-never-found-before cartridge. I love reading the "2600 Connection" newsletter, for just such fun news. This is one reason I like the term "digital archaeology" so much, too; it does seem a lot like "digging up" forgotten treasures. Understanding the historical significance of such a find, or just appreciating it as is, makes this hobby a lot of fun. And yes, this is all a sneaky ploy to get more of you "out there" interested in helping to find such gems, as Paul and I simply cannot do this on our own. Too much physical space to cover, for one thing. So keep your eyes open, wherever you are located, OK? You never know what one-of-a-kind gem you'll run across in your travels!