William Shatner.... wants you to..... buy the.... COMMODORE VIC 20-Commercial for the Vic-20 circa 1981+How did the machine come to be?

Back in the early 1980s, 

Canadian Actor WILLIAM SHATNER,

aka CAPTAIN KIRK from STAR TREK, The Original Series(1966-1969)

Starred in commercials for a certain little home computer from COMMODORE BUSINESS MACHINES in WEST CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA:

Ah yes, that COMMODORE VIC20. Pictured above is the early PET KEYBOARD revision from 1981.

Meant to be a successor to the earlier PET Computer released by Commodore back in 1977

The VIC20 however was susposed to be more advanced than what COMMODORE was initially planning.

I've read that the Successor to the PET was susposed to be the TOI

Notice the pun there?

Unfortunately, the TOI never materialized due to a manufacturing and Cost Issue.

Remember, RAM prices in the 1980s were very expensive, so don't rant about wanting to PUNCH SAM ALTMAN in the face at a shareholders meeting.... YET....

Because RAM PRICING was even worse back in the 80s due to how new the PERSONAL COMPUTER market was back then.

So what prevented the TOI from being COST-EFFECTIVE?

Well it was the result of issues relating to RAM..... in a connected sense.

The late CHUCK PEDDLE wanted this machine to be an 80-Column machine

Just to compete with the APPLE II just because of how successful LOTUS-123 and VISICALC had become.

However, the 80-Columns required the MOS 6564 Chip but that required STATIC RAM which at the time was HYPER-EXPENSIVE and using the cheaper DYNAMIC RAM was a no-go due to the constant refresh issues.

Frustrated with the TOI project going nowhere due to the STUPID HIGH PRICE OF SRAM, JACK TRAMIEL noticed a little project that fellow employee ROBERT YANNES was making Custom-Built computer he dubbed THE MicroPET. When TRAMIEL saw the MicroPET, he immediately decided to greenlight that hobby project and ordered it to be MASS-PRODUCED just in time for CES 1980.

What COMMODORE SHATNER COMMERCIAL you ask?

Well, here's said commercial below:

And not one but two of them.

The above one was just SHATNER shilling for COMMODORE, praising everything relating to how simple of a computer it was but also that it can play great games.

Speaking about VIDEO GAMES,

Here's a much more interesting Commercial below:

If you can't settle on what's better, ATARI or INTELLEVISION,

then back in 1981, you could just follow CAPTAIN KIRK's advice and say;

"GET A COMMODORE VIC20!!!! IT'S BETTER!!!!"

Of course, that mantra wouldn't last long due to what's to come in 1982:

Yup. Good old, COMMODORE 64.

Nowadays, what with the controversies with the way both PLAYSTATION & XBOX are now being handled now, I'd probably say:

"Just build an AMD RYZEN GAMING PC with WINDOWS 11 PRO or STEAMOS 3.8! It's better."

Notice I did not say PC MASTER RACE?

I just don't want to make BEN CROSHAW angry at me or at you wonderful readers of mine.