With my Commodore Vic-20 Unexpandeded, loading the games with the Datasete is not a very difficult business. The files are of modest size, so the loading time is still acceptable. However, it seems useful to be able to transfer games, programs or utilities from my PC to the Commodore.
This is why I bought an SD card emulator for Commodore Vic-20, of the SD2IEC type on eBay. The emulator includes microSD and thousands of programs and video games, both for Commodore Vic-20, and for the other commodores I own.
I described the functioning of the emulator, Fastload and I did other experiments with the Commodore 64 in this article.
Connection of the SD Card emulator to the Commodore Vic-20
I chose the SD Card emulator for Commodore Vic-20, of the SD2IEC type, rather than the Tapuino Data Small emulator, because it is faster. In addition, I had more ease to find the .PRG or .D64 files on the net. In fact, these files are supported by the SD2IEC floppy emulator, while the Tapuino Data Small emulator uses .tap files.
The emulator purchased I connect to the Commodore Vic-20 by means of two connectors:
- the IEC serial port;
- the connector for the C2N / 1530 datassette.
The data only pass through the IEC serial port, while the data set connector is used to feed the SD2Iec emulator.
In addition to the two connectors just described, the emulator is also equipped with a third connector, an additional IEC serial door to connect a floppy disc drive 1541. This connector can be useful for copying the old files already present on Floppy Disc on microSD or vice versa.
Test of the SD2IEC emulator
The emulator is very simple to use and immediately worked correctly. The only drawback of the version purchased I bought is in the case, which is printed through a 3D printer. Unfortunately it is a little too wide and the datassete connector slips right to the limit, without the possibility of being completely inserted.
The SD Card emulator for Commodore Vic-20, SD2IEC, includes a microSD card, containing over 3GB of files, between games, applications and utilities for:
- Commodore VIC-20;
- Commodore 64;
- Commodore 16, Plus/4;
- Commodore 128.
Through the PIP Switch, I set the emulator to 9 to load the browser file, useful for navigating the microSD folders, you need to type the following commands:
LOAD "FB",9
RUN
The browser file is able to identify the commodore to which the emulator is connected, in my case a Commodore Vic-20 Unexpanded.
Subsequently, the list of files contained in the various microSD folders is shown. As can be seen in the next image, the microSDs include files relating to different commodore models.
Among the various folders, there are the specific ones of the Commodore Vic-20 Unexpanded. Inside the microSD there are several files, both in .prg format and in .d64 format. I also found other games and demo for VIC-20s equipped with 8k, 16k, 24k and 32k RAM memory expansions.
And finally, here's the proof of the expert!
