page_title: Commodore VIC-20
section_title: Technical specifications
hierarchical_section_title: Commodore VIC-20 / Technical specifications
caption_attribution_description: English: Commodore VIC-20 Mainboard, ASSY No. 324003 Deutsch: Commodore VC20 Mainboard, ASSY No. 324003
context_page_description: The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future."
  The VIC-20 was called VC-20 in Germany because the pronunciation of VIC with a German accent sounds like the German expletives "fick" or "wichsen". The term VC was marketed as though it was an abbreviation of VolksComputer.
context_section_description: The VIC-20 shipped with 5 KB RAM, but 1.5 KB of this was used by the system for the video display and dynamic aspects of the ROM-resident Commodore BASIC and KERNAL (a low-level operating system). Only 3583 bytes of BASIC program memory for code and variables are actually available on an unexpanded machine.
caption: VIC-20 mainboard
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