Time Machine? Or VIC-20 24KB RAM 7 Cartridge Expander?

[@8_Bit]

Thanks for the comments everybody. Various commenters have identified the enclosure as an Archer brand "Deluxe Metal Enclosure" sold by Radio Shack, catalog number 270-228 or 270-269 for example.

[@Xoferif]

Whoever made that certainly poured some love into its construction! =)

[@shaunmorgan2202]

Yes, I agree, it's something I would be proud of.

[@R.Daneel]

Really was. I think it's a tight fit because that sort of nerd would use their cartridges without cases. I mean, come on!

[@TheStuffMade]

Very cool, someone put a lot of effort into that expansion box, I bet he'd be pleased to know it's still working.

[@SteveGuidi]

Sometimes these types of videos become popular and bring forth the original creator in the comments. Hopefully he or she is still with us and sees their creation featured on the Internet!

[@NozomuYume]

I love hand-built hardware like this. No OSHPark/PCBWay. No Pi. Just wires, solder, grit and determination!

[@fwingebritson]

And likely inspired from a magazine that had the schematics and instructions to guide the way.

[@HypherNet]

@@fwingebritson I cannot imagine building something like this from a magazine unless you already had EE training or experience in a factory or lab. Honestly youtube is the most important modern technology for DIY electronics. Though JLCPCB and KiCAD or EasyEDA certainly make a huge difference.

[@fwingebritson]

@@HypherNet Magazines from the 80's like Byte, were very good as containing everything from basic (and sometimes assembler) code, as well as plans and schematics for neat and interesting stuff to add on to your computer. In fact, most computers came with complete schematics that would help diagnose issues and add stuff to the computer. It was like having a car that came complete with a repair manual. Of course now there are smaller and better things, but most sources offer a taste and require a lot more perspiration and imagination. I guess I am trying to say it was easier back then, whereas now the MFR;s and sources seem to assume people are simply born with the knowledge. Unless there are very well rounded courses that schools offer these days in which people are assumed to know.

[@JGirard1Stream]

Hi Robin. I think this device is great! I grew up and learned on the VIC-20 (born in 1969). The VIC-20 holds a special place in my heart, the same as you for C64. I made a very similar RAM expander for my VIC-20 years ago, but instead of the cartridge expansion slots, I added a ROMulator socket. The ROMulator socket allowed me to use the VIC-20 to emulate the ROM of a different computer or microcontroller device. The different device would read from the RAM connected to the socket just as if it were ROM. From the VIC-20, I could then use my HESMON machine language monitor to program the memory connected to that socket. When ever VIC-20 would write to that RAM address range, it would hold the reset to the connected device. After writing was complete, the reset would be lifted and then the device would restart with the new code update. I used octal bi-directional buffers to isolate each side. I still have my original VIC-20 and that same RAM expander/ROMulator board that I made. If I could attach pictures here, I would share with you, but that is not possible. By the way, you didn't really mention in the video where or how you got your device. I am curious where it came from and who made it.

[@chrismason7066]

Get in touch with him so he can do a review

[@flymario8046]

The carts fit in the case just fine... that why we have rubber mallets... every vintage computer enthusiast should have one... and an air can. Oh wow ... that every well done for the time. Makes me want to get a ViC 20 and put full memory in it with simi modern static ram.

[@video99couk]

I built a contraption to allow a RAM cart to be added and simultaneously a couple of EPROM copy ROMs (Vickit? and VICMON). I had to add buffer chips because the EPROM couldn't drive the bus and cabling. I still have it and it still works, must dig it out.

[@CiociariaStorica]

Love it. A modern version of this thing will be great!

[@csbruce]

0:24 I had a homemade VIC-20 cartridge expander. But, it was too glitchy for any practical use. 1:35 Odd that you can't use more than one cartridge at a time. Though, I guess the only cartridges you might want to use with others is RAM expansion. 2:20 Mechanical-watch parts. 4:11 Why split the 16K and 24K expansions? They're compatible with each other and are equally incompatible with the unexpanded VIC. 9:47 I take that it even a simple 8K expander from the era also wouldn't be recognized. 13:50 Infinite power!!

[@CityXen]

Ha ha John Titor made this. ;)

[@merykjenkins3274]

Funniest ending ever, shades of the old 'the Time Machine' movie where the Inventor sends his model into time. Great stuff and such an interesting little home made build, beautifully constructed!

[@christianmeglio9111]

1:25 That is a pretty expensive unit at $6000 to $7FFF Dollars

[@DrDavesDiversions]

Nice construction, whoever you are! The black and red momentary switches, e.g., for reset, look like ones I bought from Radio Shack in the early '80s.

[@DrDavesDiversions]

​@@HutchCA When I was in grade school, a friend and I used to wire them up to piezo buzzers and 9v batteries, tape them all up with electrical tape and... well, umm, probably annoy people. :)

[@rarbiart]

whoever built this, was knowing the stuff. i smell a ham radio operator....

[@EvanEdwards]

Exactly what I was thinking. At least in my experience, the '70s and early '80s home computing scene had a very strong overlap with the HAM scene.

[@DasIllu]

I think the wire wrapping give it away that it was not a ham. I think CS engineer with a degree from the early 70's. A ham would totally go off on you for using wirewrap and not putting the bypass caps directly across the chips... soooo much noise! xD

[@rarbiart]

@@DasIllu i am not sure if this bypass caps concept was fully understood by all folx in the 1980ies. (and wirewrap had astonishing good HF characteristics for f

[@Okurka.]

That looks like a case you could buy from Radioshack/Tandy to build your own project in. The top is cut out by hand.

[@mykalimba]

Yep, I agree with this 100%. It looks like a typical project case you used to be able to buy at Radio Shack. They also sold a hand nibbler tool to cut out rectangular-ish openings like on this case.

[@8_Bit]

It'd be great to find the exact match. I've also found some similar-looking cases with the google search "transformer enclosure".

[@Okurka.]

@@mykalimba It looks like they drilled the 4 corners of the opening and used a jigsaw to cut it out.

[@bobblum5973]

I definitely recognize the case / chassis is from Radio Shack, it even had the ventilation slots. Also the conical trim washers used for the four case screws were typical for this type of case. Likewise for the knobs, switches and most if not all of the other parts, Radio Shack. Try looking here: www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalog_directory.html www.radioshackcatalogs.com/part_numbers-all_products.html

[@lwilton]

@@bobblum5973 Looking at my stack of unbuilt project boxes form the 1980s, that is Archer cabinet 270-269.

[@larryh8072]

This is a great find Robin. I’m a fellow Canadian that was a member of TPUG back in the day. (Toronto Pet Users Group) I made a bit of stuff for the Vic20 but the one that I used the most was a small expander with only one slot. It had two switches and one push button. The push button was reset, one switch disabled writing to the added expansion slot, and one switch reversed block 5 and 3. This allowed you to plug in your game cartridge, switch it to block 3, and save your game on the 1541 drive. To play a game you would plug in 8k or 16k of ram (yes we made our own ram boards), load the game to 6000 (blk 3) from the disk, switch the block from 3 to 5, disable the write line and press reset. It was a great way to archive your cartridge games:). I still have all of the stuff I made for my Vic and my original Vic. Your videos are inspiring me to dust it off and bring it back to life. Thanks for all of the great stuff you put together on your channel.

[@8_Bit]

Hi Larry, thanks for watching and for the comment! Neat about the VIC-20 expander, I believe Chuck Hutchins @cahutch1000 demonstrated something like that on his channel.

[@williammckeever4790]

Great find! A lot of respect to whomever put this together. I remember using wire wrap for projects around 40 yrs ago (still have the radio shack made wire wrap tool somewhere around here). The amount of wrapping to do on this project is incredible and the satisfaction the builder would have had upon completion would have been something to see.

[@ropersonline]

13:21: I'm astonished to see they still used wire-wrapping at such a late stage, already well into the microcomputer era. Why?

[@Okurka.]

@@ropersonline IKR, they made a PCB for the connector so why not make one for the RAM and for the cartridge slots?

[@rusticraver82]

I owned one made out of what looked like an old kitchen cupboard, it had 5 cartridge slots, was covered in white veneer and the motherboard was glued down on top of it. Quality bit of kit.

[@CheshireNoir]

Heh. I have played Telengard on the PC, Commodore 64 (My first version) and on the Apple II. My childhood was spent trying to map the insanely large level map. (200x200x50) One tactic we used to do is to sneak down to level 50, hoping to snarf some loose treasure and make it back up (Using Grey Misty Cubes) without being spotted. A single pile of Gems was usually worth hundreds of thousands, so getting to high levels wasn't too hard, assuming no one spotted you.

[@10MARC]

I always dreamed about something like this as a 13 year old kid... The best I had was the Super Expander though... Nice to see Telengard on the VIC 20 - I just found it myself last month!

[@8_Bit]

I actually didn't notice your Telengard video until after I had recorded this! I would have given you a shout-out otherwise :P

[@10MARC]

@@8_Bit no worries about that! The guy did a really nice job reformatting everything for the VIC-20. It is really very playable!

[@SteveGuidi]

The timing of these two Telengard references was uncanny :)

[@DuckGWR]

Letraset, beautiful, the linings on the Thomas the Tank Engine locomotives in the 80s and 90s when real models were used to film was Letraset. I love the two rotary switches. Couldn't just go for six slots and use the one switch, huh. I love the old parallel/serial dumb switchboxes that run all 25 pins through a huge rotary switch, they look like a corn cob from the back.

[@kf4hnf]

Hello Robin nice find the box came from Radio Shack, I'm looking at one right now that I bought years ago for a project that I built. Also I built an expander board for my Vic 20 back in the day. Lawrence

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

As far as the NMI button goes it's probably for cartridges that freeze and dump games after they've checked the copy protection.

[@Asterra2]

That Atlantis actually looks amazing. I've never seen graphics on the Vic-20 run at 60fps before. And I think it actually looks better than the Atari 2600 version.

[@8_Bit]

Yeah, the VIC-20 can do some impressive stuff in the right hands. The C64 eclipsed it so quickly that very few programmers managed to master it.

[@VincentGroenewold]

That looks amazing, someone took great care in making that!

[@petrusscott3038]

I created my own expansion board that supported 8 cards. Each expansion slot had 2 switches. The 1st switch enabled/disabled the slot. The 2nd switch set the NMI or the IRQ (can’t remember) to reset the computer. When I plugged in a game cartridge and turned on the computer and pressed reset button, the computer would go to the run prompt, then I could save the cartridge to the disk.

[@Wenlocktvdx]

Like the expansion interface for the Tandy/Radio Shack TRS 80 model 1 and the Multi Pak interface for the CoCo. I had the CoCo 3 version which I made switchable to bypass the lockout which prevented some older CoCo accessories working on it.

[@paulkocyla1343]

Had to laugh about the decoupling caps just having been put into one cluster - instead of putting each one of them directly at the ICs. Someone missed the point there. This, the wirewrapping and the long ribbon cable would explain the noisy behavior.

[@Canyon76]

Dude! I was watching your video at my hobby workbench and at the end when you prepared to send the "time machine back to 1983 I was smiling at what creative video editing you might come up with and as soon as you flipped the switch I nearly jumped out of my skin! There sitting on my workbench was IT! The Ram Expansion! I was elated! But I couldn't accept such a miraculous gift. So I had to give it a COVID free kiss goodbye and send it back! Keep that thing safe and away from the Men in Black!

[@8bits59]

Seeing those Hitachi 6116 static RAMs is almost timeless. You can still get them in quantity today, and there are variants that go up as far as 64Kx8 and, I think, even 128Kx4.

[@KennethSorling]

It looks like such a homemade beast! Yet oddly competent. Doesn't anyone know from whence it came and who built it?

[@thda81]

Aside from the usual quality of the video itself, I really like the ambient-esque music at the end. Thanks again, Robin!

[@allenhuffman]

What a neat gadget. During my VIC year, the only memory expansion I had was in the Super Expander, and I never used it since I realized no one would be able to use anything I wrote unless they also had it. Now I wish I had gotten a RAM expander back then.

[@andlabs]

Icon on the chips at 12:04 is the Hitachi logo. When I bought a Commodore 64 a little over a year ago or so, I bought it with some homemade numeric keypad attached to it. It seemed like having a piece of DIY hobbyist computer history would be interesting. Sadly a bunch of keycaps did not survive shipping (they weren't in the box). It had an obviously custom ceramic case and a mess of wires on a PCB underneath that didn't identify it very well (it had some part numbers, but nothing identifiable). I eventually figured out that it was hacked out of a Rapid Data 2000R adding machine, which I've also bought one of for myself because why not =P Some people who tried to help me identify the device did mention articles written at the time explaining how to do it, and I later found another numpad on eBay that appears to have been built and offered by a specialty shop, so there were options, I guess. (There was also the Atari CX85 numpad and a few commercial clones as well; the Deskthority page "Atari interface" has more info.) Sadly the numpad ribbon cable was soldered into the individual wires of the keyboard connector so we decided to just cut the cable out, but I am keeping what I have left of the numpad =P (The C64 worked perfectly, but I did blow a fuse and ruined a VIC-II chip's legs diagnosing that fuse problem. It also had a cassette port dongle, though I don't know which game it was for.)

[@Lloyd-Black]

Another great video. I didn't know what to expect from that one but I'm glad you tested it out and took it apart. That's exactly what I would've done. Great video as always.

[@takingbytes1265]

Every time you release a new video I cant wait to watch it! Thank you for your content! I have learned a lot for you.

[@fitfogey]

Who else immediately clicks thumbs up because we already know it’s going to be another amazing video.

[@TheXxxman64THERESNOPOINT]

I clicked because I wanted to see if it really was a time machine

[@joeyusko6903]

Guilty!

[@johneygd]

Likely i did not suckered in on the word time machine until i clicked on the video, i was amezed once i saw that word, i was just curious about that huge obscure ram expander.

[@Lloyd-Black]

I'm always curious about what he's going to show. I'm from the era of these retro 8-bit systems so all of his videos are kinda special to me. It brings me back every time.

[@physnoct]

I found similar RAM chips (Hitachi 6116) in an Hyperion computer. They were selling boards of these at electronics surplus stores.

[@BooXdk]

What a piece of art some guy has put together way back in time 👍

[@FirstLevelMagic]

When I was a kid growing up I would steal time on whatever computers I could at school because I didn’t have one at home, and in my last year of high school someone had a floppy with a game called something like ‘Telengard ][‘ - and I figured out it was written in BASIC, printed the source code out, took it home, and over the weekend wrote, with pencil and paper, a save game editor and entered&debugged that when I was back at school the next week. Not the same platform, but man, did seeing ‘Telengard’ while watching this bring back memories. (I think it was the same game and ][ was thrown on the Apple port, but I could be wrong)

[@lwilton]

Those knobs and the rotary switches look very much like Radio Shack parts from the era. Radio Shack also made a project case that looked very much like that box, including the sheet metal screws with the tin dish washers to hold it together, but I remember them being black rather than silver. The toggle switches don't look like RS parts, I believe RS was selling ALPS (or ALPS clone) switches in that era. The 44 pin connectors were available from RS, but a number of the perf boards and those Japanese logic chips don't look like RS parts. Mouser had just come into existence about that time, then based in San Diego. They had a good catalog, cheap prices, and quick mail order delivery as compared to Allied and the more established mail order houses of the time. I suspect whoever made that used a bunch of RS parts and a bunch either from a local surplus house or from Mouser. Certainly all of the parts would have been easily available to the more dedicated hobbyist of the era.

[@Gansteeth]

A fantastic piece of art, inside and out. Functional too!

[@bsvenss2]

07:05 Ohhh... OMEGA RACE! The love of my life. 😍 I got OMEGA RACE and JUPITER LANDER as a bundle when I bought my first VIC-20. Had no tape recorder, so I had to type in any other game I wanted to play... again, and again and again... 😂

[@Rudofaux]

7:57 In the distant future of 2003. Oh how optimistic they were.

[@256byteram]

Woah! Those SRAMs must draw a load of current! No wonder you're seeing brightness changes rolling on the screen, the power supply must be under a lot of stress.

[@LeftoverBeefcake]

The Dorktronic RAM expander is excellent and has a permanent home in my VIC.

[@rarbiart]

2k S(!)RAMs, 12 pcs? that must have cost a fortune back in the days!

[@BrainSlugs83]

They were probably using home made carts with it, that didn't have a plastic shell. That or additional cart edge ribbon cables.

[@xXRedyzXx]

Love your humor, keep up the great content; love the pace and style!

[@richards7909]

It’s a thing of beauty that. Someone not only knew what they were doing, but did it well. Wonder if it was a developer. Out of interest, how easy would it have been to get those components and would they have been expensive?

[@CanadianRetroThings]

The most important question, can you make toast with it? MMMM, toast and retro games! 😃

[@kf4hnf]

Also if I remember right those boxes where made by Bud Industries. They where also sold by Olson electronics, Lafayette Electronics and others. Lawrence

[@zaitarh]

Love the outtro music!

[@hicknopunk]

Woah, a "MVS" for the VIC!

[@danielktdoranie]

Love the time machine gag, very funny!

[@idahofur]

Look at that nice little switch box. Reminds me a s100 computer.

[@timsmith2525]

Awesome! Someone had a lot of love for the Vic-20!

[@jokkea492]

I made C64 1541 Floppy drive memory expansion back in 80`s

[@brendanfarthing]

Extremely interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[@NivagSwerdna]

I bet that made a wow at their local amateur computer club. Nice bit of work! Respect.

[@Arivia1]

2 of the RAM chips in the expander have code 3D3, not 3C3. Not sure if that makes a difference.

[@FullMetalFab]

The little bit at the end made me think I was watching This Old Tony for a minute.

[@GeoffSeeley]

Love the mad engineering in this box, thanks for showing it off!

[@wisteela]

That is fantastic. I love the dense matrix of RAM.

[@cacheman]

5:56 Interesting to learn that this version of Telengard is using WASD for movement.

[@davidburns8113]

this is so wild!!! could you imagine having to do this today to get more memory on our systems

[@ShaunBebbington]

Another excellent video

[@richretrotech9426]

Wow. Respect to the people who can imagine and build this stuff.

[@mordokch]

The Vic20 was my first computer when I was about 11 ish. Played games for a couple of days, then got bored and started programming it using the book it came with on basic. I remember writing a little app to find guitar chords and display their variations in a chord box just like it's done now. I suppose that was the first guitar chord software ever written ! Do I get a prize ?

[@3vi1J]

I don't think the case is repurposed. I think they drilled four holes in the top of an iron project box, cut out the square between them, and halved+bent that spare square of material to make the brackets creating the recessed slot(s). Very nice DIY design/build by someone.

[@8_Bit]

Could be! "transformer enclosure" also brings up some very similar looking boxes.

[@AndyHewco]

Love it. More so that someone must have put a long time into constructing it.

[@HuntersMoon78]

That's a nice, clean VIC-20

[@Timmymantwo]

I'd love to know how it works and if it's possible to make a new one

[@moshly64]

Slot 1 (or 7) is configured differently to the rest, it appears to have diode pullups on the RAM block chip selects and a different data bus connection. Maybe this was for the 3K super expander to disable the on-cart RAM but keep the ROM active. Slot 2 is also odd, looks like the NMI is connected. Worryingly it looks like it switches the VCC to enable each cartridge, this is a very bad idea. (see eevblog chip works with no power connected) Did you try the ram board in another slot ?

[@ferguslogan4034]

I wonder if you could use the super expander cartridge along with the 24k ram built into the unit?

[@NickFellows]

Wow - beautifully made!

[@MrRobbiepee]

I wonder if that was a kit that was available at the time. I don't think I would fancy trying to wire that lot up!

[@robintst]

Keep sending it back in time until it rewrites history and we get the real Commodore back. :-)

[@bluephreakr]

You wonder how the Raspberry Pi foundation was made yeah? I think he did this enough times already!

[@tommyovesen]

Nice video again Robin. Thanks:)

[@SteveGuidi]

All those capacitors in a DIP socket look suspiciously like bypass capacitors. Usually, you install those across the +/- rail as close as possible to the IC's power/ground pins. This way, you minimize any noise generated by the wiring/traces between the capacitor and the chip. With all that meticulous hand-wiring, it looks like the purpose of the bypass capacitor was defeated :(

[@ScottyBrockway]

Homebrew used to be so cool, great episode Robin!

[@TheVintageApplianceEmporium]

It's beautiful! A work of art

[@prow7]

Did you get the time machine from Dwayne Richard?

[@ianide2480]

Looks like an old PSU case

[@plok7533]

Your voice is so calming, I subscribed within 30 seconds of the video. Thank you for demonstrating this!

[@Asterra2]

I did have more RAM. I had the Super Expander. Got me my 8K of RAM total. It was good enough to make piddly little games in Basic and some four-channel tunes lasting up to a few minutes long, also in Basic. It was kind of funny. I'd always run into the absolute limit of available RAM, and there was always a quirk about the last character, like it wouldn't keep, or or it saved weirdly or something.

[@sgl.888]

Awesome video and awesome device! It would have been a dream of mine back then. Robin, you sure show a deep knowledge of these machines! Back in 1983 a small local TV here in my area used a Vic 20 for their own titles and tv guide: I remember they used a simple basic program which just printed lines on the screen but they managed to get a very slow scrolling through a single poke instruction to an address around 600-800. I can't remember what it was and never found it on any of my online searches. Do you happen to have a suggestion? I think it's related to interrupts, but I haven't had any luck trying to reproduce that behavior...

[@8_Bit]

Unfortunately I can't think of a single POKE that would manage smooth scrolling in BASIC. The video chip is up around location 36864, and I think you can scroll half a character at a time like that, but not pixel-smooth scrolling, which requires more trickery on the VIC-20.

[@sgl.888]

@@8_Bit I'm trying to recall better and it came to me that they achieved that by not only slowing down the scrolling speed, but the whole basic interpreter which became very slow and almost unresponsive.

[@8_Bit]

@@sgl.888 Oh, funny! Maybe they were adjusting the system interrupt speed? Normally that would make the cursor flash faster or slower, but maybe if you turned it really fast (frequent) it would actually spend most of the time servicing the interrupt and cause BASIC to slow way down. Somebody should try that! :)

[@sgl.888]

@@8_Bit I think you nailed it!

[@TheXJ12]

As "Ian Ide " said, it looks like an old fashion power supply case

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

Cool video :) It's an interesting device

[@jpcompton]

So many chips. At the risk of inviting you to turn this into "8-Bit Power Supply Replacements and Recapping", I am a smidge surprised there's no discussion of just how many expansion port chips and carts the original Vic power supplies could be trusted to drive...

[@EvanEdwards]

Beautiful work -- and every time you throw power through it, an FCC field agent gets their wings. ;D

[@Lee_Adamson_OCF]

Wow, I did not expect to see SRAM under there. =:O I wonder how much that cost in 1983.........

[@moshly64]

Around $5 each in 1985

[@2010Thex]

How do you find such cool retro stuff? Another great video

[@anderswahlgren9308]

I got an VIC1010 Expansion module with my VIC-20. Can´t find any on youtube, are they rare? Seems to be about the same thing but made by Commodore.

[@darkstatehk]

One of those videos when you click like at 3 seconds into the video! EDIT: The end of this video is brilliant!

[@UltimatePerfection]

You should put the end of the expander in some sort of shell or someone may insert it upside-down and fry vic20 and/or the expander itself.

[@IntenseGrid]

lolol funny time travel bit on the end

[@mzsharpworks]

How does BASIC actually calculate how many bytes are free? Always wondered this.

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

I have a Vic-20 and have been wanting to put more RAM in it but I have hesitated because I keep hearing how adding RAM in various blocks here and there can actually make some software actually Not Work. So if I was to add RAM, there would have to be switches to adjust how much memory space would be seen by the computer for various uses. Can anyone explain this conundrum?

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

I'd hate to spend the money for the 24k expansion and then load up Telengard and be so disappointed. :( Still, that RAM is useful for other things too, like some of the early productivity software.

[@CB3ROB-CyberBunker]

don't think they had any 'ultrasonic cleaners' in the 1980s. (and if they did you could probably buy 50 vic-20s plus all the ram you wanted for less than the price of said ultrasonic cleaner) the case looks like any other universal prototype case you could buy everywhere back then. plus the hole on top is cut by drilling the edgess. would an actual manufacturer or 'ultrasonic cleaners' have done it that way? :P it's just a typical universal 2 c profiles screwed onto each other 'default' 'universal' steel case. you could probably get of a 100 different suppliers back then. (not just in hobbyist stores, also in larger quantities for niche products) heck quite a few commercial test devices and powersupplies came in those too.