Honestly can't believe this channel only has 500 subscribers. It's just as interesting as some of The 8 Bit Guy's stuff

Interesting. I never used any word processors on the VIC. I suppose the two big drawbacks of the VIC-20 was the screen and the RAM. And while you could pull off a 40 column screen using graphics, that takes up yet even more RAM, leaving less for your document.

You need so many more followers. More excellent vic 20 info!

These are some creative uses of the VIC-20's 22 columns. Good coverage of the history.

Fantastic video, I think I'll go with VicWriter

That was exceptionally interesting. Real, fancy hardcore retro stuff + great knowledge of details. Top notch, as always.

This was excellent! Amazing what they were able to do with such limitations. And you showed the capabilities well.

What a great video. Thanks for all this great backgrounds on VIC-20 Word Processors! Now I need to watch your spreadsheet video!

I just posted it in the Commodore VIC-20 group on Facebook which has 3.9K members.

I think I had VICWRITER on cartridge for the vic-20, if I remember correctly I wrote a report in 3rd grade in 81-82 with it. I remember my dad had Quick Brown Fox, but I never figured out how to use it.

Vic-20, 32k expansion, black and white portable tv, 1541 drive, seikosha printer. Got me through university….. 😂😂😂😂😂

I had Quick Brown Fox for the VIC and wrote some reports using it. I can't remember anything else about it, but the line editing looks painful. Reminds me of a quote: "Microsoft Windows - from the people who brought you EDLIN!" I switched to SpeedScript when it was available and never looked back.

I just thought about something and went to check some software for the Vic I picked up a bit ago... Thought I might have VicWriter, but no.... I have: The VIC Typewriter Wordprocessor with Typing Tutor Looks to be one of the Commodore releases and I also have the tiny 13 page manual. I might have to fire that one up and see what it looks like... Well, fired it up. Interesting, the file on the tape is named speedscript (I was wrong about that). It does look a bit similar, with no left/right scrolling. I was mixing things up. It also came with a program to teach you to type called SpeedType, but the word processor loads as "Vic Typewriter", which is what it should find according to the manual. Anyway, it still looks like speedscript, with the ← showing whenever I hit enter. But it doesn't also go to a new line. It just shows the ← symbol, and then continues. Like: This is a test←and this is after I hit enter The title bar has a starting display that looks like this: L: 0 VIC LINE: 45 In the manual, it says that on an unexpanded VIC, it will handle 45 lines, so that makes sense. And the number after the L: does increment. But it doesn't increment when I hit enter for a new line, it increments when I actually get to a new line on the screen. So it looks kind of like this (sorry for the typos, I was typing too fast and not correcting): L: 2 VIC LINES: 45 ths is a test←testing← testin 2← still moe te sting..←test← With 45 full character lines as a max, I think that would mean you could have 990 characters (45x22)? With some quick guessing and bad math, I think that would get you about 18-20 lines of text, assuming around 55 characters per line? So, a quick letter with an unexpanded Vic? ;-)

The question is, how do you get these files on a modern pc if you were crazy enough to write a novel on a vic 20?

I’ve got the manual for the C64 version of Write Now. I plan to test the commands to see how many of them work on the VIC. Great work, btw. Thanks for the reviews! Why do I want to review vintage software? Because I long for those “friendlier” computer days.

In the old days I found ANYTHING less than 80 CHARACTERS INTOLERABLE. I would never have tried 22 characters. They tried to solve it well, but ... please ... A TYPEWRITER would have been better. I hope that nowadays NOBODY is using the VIC20 for WORK right?