Rare Tymac Vic-20 Cartridges and Expand-O-Ram Found

[the_coder]

At an estate sale in Kingwood Texas in June 2024, four Tymac cartridges were found along with a lot of other Vic-20 hardware.  In the lot were 4 game cartridges:

Zap! (Zap) – None documented to exist, besides Compute Magazine Jan 1983 ad by Tymac

Dot-a-Lot  – None documented to exist, besides Compute Magazine Jan 1983 ad by Tymac

Key Quest – Known to exist, gameplay video on youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04KeK8hTJ4Y

D-Fuse (D’Fuse) – Known to exist, gameplay video on youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7GzQiE1Nfo

 

I have done extensive internet research, and as of this date, I could not find any mention of the Zap or Dot-a-Lot games other than the one reference in the Compute Magazine ad. 

 

All 4 games have what appears to be original labels.  The labels are a metallic gold color, roughly 1.25” x 0.5”.  The labels contain no graphics, only the name of the game, and a copywrite notice.   All four include the date 1983.

 

There are minor discrepancies in the names of the games vs. other documentation for the Zap and D-Fuse games.  In the Compute Magazine Jan 1983, they are advertised as “Zap” and “D’Fuse”.  But the labels on these games are “Zap!!” and “D-Fuse”.   The opening screen shown in the video clip of D’Fuse   (toward the end of the video) shows D’Fuse, not D-Fuse.

The font and location of the D-Fuse label is a little different than the others, as is the shade of blue of the plastic.  I suspect at some point the owner of the other three moved the labels to the edge to make them easier to read when stored.  They are currently held in place with very old scotch tape.  I can’t prove it, but given the lack of tape on the label on the D-Fuse cartridge, this was probably the original location of the labels for the series??  It is either that, or the D-Fuse cartridge is an early prototype.

 

A friend of mine came by today with his Vic-20 to test them out.  D’Fuse, Zap, and Key Quest fired right up and are playable. 

 

The Dot-a-Lot has issues.  It came up once with the intro screen, then shut down.  The intro screen had blue letters on a black background, with the words: 

 

MICRO-WARE DIST INC. 
PRESENTS
DOT-A-LOT
BY
MIKE PIERONE
PRESS A KEY

 

After roughly 5 seconds, it went to a white screen with what appears to be a BASIC or OS prompt of “Ready”.   On restart, it came up with a scrambled screen.  Resetting again came up with a mostly blank white screen with a single sprite that looked somewhat like an space invaders character on the left, and the text “Level = 01” centered in the bottom.  It was unresponsive to keyboard or joystick input.  On another restart it went straight to the “Ready” screen.  I could not get it to show the original splash screen again.  Now it will sometimes go to the Level 1 screen and others to the Ready screen.

 

Included in this lot was a Tymac 16K “Expand-O-Ram” expansion card that tested good.

 

Based on the lack of documentation on these cartridges, I assume they are very rare?  Is there evidence of other copies of Zap or Dot-a-Lot?  Do people collect them?

 

Edited July 20 by the_coder
Added Dot-a-Lot Splash Screen Image

[the_coder]

The Dot-a-Lot screen following the splash screen...

[+evg2000]

@ianoid  i’m guessing these aren’t yours, just odd two posts about zap in a week. 

[+cvga]

Super cool that games are still being discovered. Evidently these guys were hiding for over 40 years. Thanks for sharing!

[+evg2000]

@the_coder you should probably find someone to dump these before they completely fail.

[the_coder]

I just saw a Zap sold on eBay last week ($261).  Not mine.

They came from the collection of an elderly man, probably in his late 80's.  He had a nicely curated collection of Commodore and NES hardware, along with many great condition complete-in-box GI Joe toys.  I scored a new-in-box NES-001 Action Set, a bunch of pristine NES games, some Vic-20 hardware, these Tymac cartridges, and some GI Joe's.  It was a good day.

[carlsson]

Have you considered cleaning the connectors? The mild solution is isopropanol alcohol on a Q-tip and swab. If there is a lot of dirt, you should carefully use a pencil eraser on the connectors, then afterwards clean it off with isopropanol. Generally you don't need any more abrasive methods than those two. It might make the last cartridge start properly on each attempt.

Edited July 21 by carlsson

[Mayhem]

The carts got listed and pulled, presumably as someone made an offer he couldn't refuse.

 

The carts were notorious for failing, or poor quality, and the epoxy stopped you even getting into them to grab the chip off the board. I've had an unlabelled failed Tymac cart, no idea what game, was never able to tell, and broke the chip trying to get into the case 🤦‍♂️