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

My apologies for my poor attempt at his style of SYNTAX SPEECH......anyway,

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 VIC 20. 

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 manufacturing and Cost Issues.

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

Because RAM PRICING was even worse back in the 80s due to how relatively 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 the TOI to be an 80-Column machine with full on color graphics as to allow the end user to have the visual clarity of those machines that use 80-columns since that's what most word processors and spreadsheet software are formatted for.

And this was all just to compete with then recently released APPLE II Plus in the wake of the success of both LOTUS-123 and VISICALC.

However, the 80-Columns display required the MOS 6564 Chip but that particular chip 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.

(This was before the VIC-II chip was even manufactured.)

Frustrated with the TOI project going nowhere due to the STUPID HIGH PRICE OF SRAM, JACK TRAMIEL noticed a little project that fellow employee BOB YANNES was making which was a Custom-Built computer he dubbed 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!!!!"

You can use the computer to do your Business crap, program your software, or even play video games on it.

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

Yup. Good old, COMMODORE 64.

The only thing the C64 and the VIC 20 have in common is that they share the same peripherals to a point you can use the same tape drives, same 1541 Floppy Drives, printers, etc.

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."

Just as long as you ignore your WALLET's complaints or find better deals for things like RAM at Select WALMARTs or SEAGATE FIRECUDAs at a reasonable price before they get sold out... etc.

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.

I just wanted to make this post because 2026 is the 45th Anniversary of the COMMODORE VIC20 in the USA.

It's also the 45th Anniversary of the modern x86 PC Architecture as well but that will have to wait until August.

Update as of July 24 2026:

SONY is still refusing to back down from their DIGITAL PUSH, even holding their employees hostage over spreading the news about their actions on various SOCIAL MEDIA handles.

But at least MICROSOFT is managing to RIGHT A WRONG:

They've announced backwards compatibility of their older XBOX titles for WINDOWS PCs.

So far, only 4 NICHE titles were announced but that number will grow.