MOS Technology VIC

It was originally designed for applications such as low-cost CRT terminals, biomedical monitors, control system displays and arcade or home video game consoles.

Both of these chips failed due to memory timing constraints (both required very fast and thus expensive SRAM, making them unsuitable for mass production).

Before finally starting to use the VIC in the VIC-20, chip designer Robert Yannes fed features from the 6562 (a better sound generator) and 6564 (more colors) back to the 6560, so before beginning mass production for the VIC-20 it had been thoroughly revised.

Its features include: Unlike many other video circuits of the era, it does not offer dynamic RAM refresh capabilities.

Programmable characters are the only way of creating graphics and animation on the VIC as the chip does not have sprites or an all-points-addressable bitmap mode.