I had quite resolved not to get a VIC-1001 early on in my collection (back when I had a tame 10 or so computers). But recently I've sort of felt like, "maybe I'll just grab this one, fire it up, and photograph it for the blog" for a number of machines, so when I found this one at a not-terrible price on Mercari, I decided to grab it.

I grew up a Commodore guy, but had never seriously used the VIC-1001's western counterpart, the VIC-20. I started on Commodore 64, upgraded to Commodore 128, eventually got an IBM PC, and later made a U-turn back to Commodore and used an Amiga for a couple of years before practicality pushed me back to the PC world. So while I'd owned a VIC-20 back in my first wave of computer collecting, I doubt I did much more than fire it up and see if it worked, and marveled about why they made the font so big. This time, I made an effort to play a game and write a mini program!

It came with the original box styrofoam, but not the main sleeve, but it did at least include the PSU and manual in pretty good condition. The VIC-1001 used what Commodore users often refer to as the PET keys, because the keys are the same style as the PET keyboards use. Later they switched to "Eurostile" keys, and eventually the more common Commodore 64-style keys, but by the time these variants came about, the VIC-1001 had hit the end of its run.

The PSU is the 2-prong style convertor used on early VIC-20s.

The manual was in quite good condition for its age. The contents are all Japanese.

The VIC-1001 did enjoy moderate success in Japan thanks to Commodore's clever partnering with HAL Labs to make a series of games for the system. They created such classics as Super Alien, Tooth Invaders, and Raid on Fort Knox. They also ported Pac-Man and Rally X, but apparently something about not getting the license to do so was a point of legal concern for the copyright holders, so if you find such cartridges, you're pretty lucky! Post-litigation, Pac-Man remained unchanged but was relabeled as Jelly Monsters, while Rally X was re-imagined a bit and released as Radar Rat Race. I actually just missed out on those rare games but I did manage to grab Galaxian that was up for sale at the same time.

Finding VIC-1001 tapes is pretty rare indeed, so I got these four at what I thought was a reasonable price about a year ago, but I had no idea what to do with them at the time! So this VIC-1001 purchase also provided me with the opportunity to try them out.