Category: BASIC (en)

Magazine Scan: VIC! Volume 11

I borrowed this magazine from a friend long enough to scan it. I had no idea there was a Commodore Japan until I was in my 40s. By the time I heard about it, it was all from the lens of an unfortunate part of computer history. But at the time this magazine was published, things were very different so now I know a bit about it from the lens of a bright future. I sure wish I could have experienced this time period, even for just one day.

This file should be fairly suitable for viewing on a desktop or a smartphone screen with zooming. If anyone wants a substantially higher quality version, please let me know.

VIC! Volume 11

Update: commentor AndreaP has alerted me to the existence of Volume 5 of this magazine on archive.org. Thanks!
https://archive.org/details/VICVol5

Comparing speed

Just a personal experiment out of curiosity. I wrote this little program on my Commodore 128 and then again on my Commodore 16.

I was curious about the speed:
3rd place: Commodore 128 executed the code in 1 minute, 55 seconds before adding lines 5 and 135.
2nd place: Commodore 16 executed the code in 1 minute, 34 seconds.
1st place: Commodore 128 executed the code in 55 seconds after adding lines 5 and 135.

So clearly lines 5 and 135 are key. The FAST command blanks the screen and doubles the CPU speed. Output is revealed after the SLOW command is issued. This is only useful in 40-column mode. In 80-column mode, the CPU is always double speed!

I was also surprised by the color palette selected on the 16. I’m pretty new to the 264 series of computers. I know it has a bigger selection of colors than the 128. It seems like you can access more vibrant colors by issuing a third argument to the COLOR command. The default 16 colors in the graphic mode seem so… Easter-ish.