@vidak Plenty of classic word processors & programmer's editors fit on 8K carts. But you need tight ASM for that.
@mdhughes
from memory, the VIC-20 has about 3KB spare after BASIC, and a couple of the utilities i have come to about 7KB code. the VIC-20 native BASIC text editor i have requires a 3KB VIC cart, so perhaps we're looking at 6KB.
my arduino mega 2650 has 4KB free in the EEPROM, and about 6.5KB free after BASIC.
i was thinking--stick the editor in the EEPROM, and try and keep as much RAM free as possible?
i have been able to count scan cycles on the 2600, so who knows... i think i may need to buy an ESP32 at this rate. something like 20KB or 32KB would be much better.
from memory, the VIC-20 has about 3KB spare after BASIC, and a couple of the utilities i have come to about 7KB code. the VIC-20 native BASIC text editor i have requires a 3KB VIC cart, so perhaps we're looking at 6KB.
my arduino mega 2650 has 4KB free in the EEPROM, and about 6.5KB free after BASIC.
i was thinking--stick the editor in the EEPROM, and try and keep as much RAM free as possible?
i have been able to count scan cycles on the 2600, so who knows... i think i may need to buy an ESP32 at this rate. something like 20KB or 32KB would be much better.
@vidak Base VIC-20 was like ZX-80/81, near-useless for anything past simple games or calculator without the big expansion pack. If you aim for 16K RAM + whatever you want in a ROM pack, it's a usable low-end work computer.