I know the VIC20 well, I am a computerhead born in 1982 so the VIC20 was all around me.
Did you upgrade the RAM on the VIC20?
The BASIC on the VIC20 is actually written by Microsoft. It is a stripped down version of MS Basic (a lot of the graphics commands were taken out) and everything had to be done with poke and peak. I remember writing lots of lines just to get the colour of the screen to change! Disco lights C64 was my favourite program done by writing a simple goto statement.
I believe Commodore paid Microsoft about $10k for the rights to Commodore Basic MS believed Commdoroe would sell a few thousand machines. Microsoft must have regretted that decision it is one thing that made Commdore's so cheap. The other is that Commodore owned MOS so all the ICs in their microcomputers were made in house. Other companies such as Apple had to source all their chips from Motorola etc.
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