Commodore User


Super Screen

Publisher: Kingsoft
Machine: Commodore Vic 20

 
Published in Commodore User #3

Super Screen

This fun little program has been reviewed already in Commodore User (November 1983) but a second opinion helps. It converts the Vic 20 to a 40-column screen thus unleashing the power of your Vic for pages and pages of tiny words just like grown-up computers.

Excuse my scepticism. I confess I actually prefer the size of the Vic's lettering; and I positively dislike the clarity of those 40-column letters - some are very hard to read and certain combinations look like ink blots. I had to turn the colour off completely before I could read the screen, but as you might see for yourself, this won't make much difference. For the extra columns you lose the ability to POKE to the screen and colour memories, and this probably explains why I could not use my word processor program with this program in operation. You also lose out on some of the Commodore Programmer's Aid cartridge facilities such as SCROLL, STEP and TRACE... at which point I lost interest.

Still, if you're an ace programmer you could still make use of the extra columns. Well, maybe.