- There are a number of programs that allow you to use 40 columns of text from Basic on a Commodore VIC-20. This can be useful as by default the Vic’s screen is 22 columns by 23 rows. They are supplied as a machine language programs which take over some of the Basic printing routines to provide you with a display using a smaller font. Because of the need to remap the screen each of these programs needs at least an additional 8K RAM expansion.