The Amazing Commodore PET
by Ian Matthews of Commodore.ca Feb 22, 2003
Revised Feb 16 2004 - Gallery Pictures last updated November 29, 2010

• Commodore PET History
• Commodore PET Manuals, Brochures, and Magazine Articles - updated April 25, 2008
• Commodore PET Games, Downloads, ROMS, Screen Shots, Reviews
• Commodore PET Chronology
• Commodore PET Hardware Identification
• Commodore PET Picture Gallery  - updated Nov 27 2005

Commodore PET History:
Announced and demonstrated in January of 1977 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, months before the Apple II or Radio Shack TRS80, the Commodore PET was the worlds first "real" computer. 

The PET came fully functional out of the box:

• a keyboard with a separate numeric pad (almost completely unheard of at the time, even as an option)

• a 9" integrated Blue and White monitor

• a main board with a powerful new 1Mhz MOS 6502 processor

• lots of room for an additional RAM or Processor board

• 4K of memory

• power supply

• real storage device (cassette tape)

• several expansion ports including an RS232 (serial) port

• ability to handle and create fantastic graphics

• upper and lower case text

• an operating system that was burned onto ROM and loaded on boot... WOW that was cool.

All this was wrapped up in a solid and good looking, white chassis.  The prototype PET's chassis use rounded edges that was likely designed by  Ira Velinsky.  When it came to production time,  Commodore decided to use the now familiar square cases, to keep production costs down.

All previous home and small business computers were little more than circuit boards; some of which did not even come with power supplies.

The original PET demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show had been cobbled together in a hurry and on the cheap.  It had a chassis made of wood and a picture tube taken from a $90 black and white TV that MOS bought from a local hardware store.  Chuck Peddle spent three days without much sleep getting the machine ready for the show and did not complete his now historic task more than a few hours before it began. 

A year earlier, in the spring on 1976 MOS Technologies' Chuck Peddle completed development of the versatile and very inexpensive MOS 6502 processor.  He and his largely ex-Motorola colleagues developed the KIM1 "Computer Trainer" to show off the functionality of this new chip but it was only the start.  Chuck developed the PET concept and took it to Radio Shack hoping to have them retail it for him but they were not interested.  Soon after, in the summer of 1977, Commodore's founder Jack Tramiel took a three million dollar loan guarantee from Canada's Irving Gould and immediately bought MOS Technologies, its staff, its patents, it production facilities, and the PET concept.

At the time Commodore manufactured office equipment like filing cabinets but its biggest business was calculators so it is no surprise that the original production Commodore PET 2001's had sheet metal chassis and calculator style keys which were dubbed "chiclet keyboards".  These 47 pound beasts were all manufactured in Commodore's original (and short lived) U.S. facility located in Palo Alto California. 

There are several rumours about the source of the name PET.  Officially it was an acronym for Personal Electronic Transactor, but P.E.T. are also the initials of one of Jack Tramiel's relatives (his wife I believe).  Whatever the origin, Jack thought that PET sounded better and would have some positive linkage with the Pet Rock fad of the late 1970's.

The PET made the cover of the October 1977 Popular Science,  had a small write up in a 1978 Playboy and had a very interesting and detailed review from the cover of the February 1978 Electronics Today. 

During the first few months Commodore could only produce about 30 machines per day but they had a huge demand.  Commodore managed to assemble a miger 500 machines in its first year. 

The four kilobyte PET's (yes that is 4096 bytes which equates to a whopping 4096 characters!) were offered through mail order for $495 and a three to six week wait. Immediately orders starting pouring in and so Jack Tramiel quickly adjusted the price to $595.  At the same time the $795 8K model was actively promoted and the 4K model was downplayed.  I believe they did this by indicating that 8K machines would ship MUCH faster than 4K machines. 

When Commodore expanded to Europe in 1978 Jack doubled the price for the same machine (with a 220 watt power supply) under the Commodore PET 3008 3016 and 3032 badges.  As was almost always the case in those days, Jack was right; the 3000 series and related future models were highly successful.

The COMMODORE BASIC Operating System was written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen from their fledgling Micro-Soft Corporation (later renamed to Microsoft Corporation).  Commodore Basic was the only software license ever granted by Microsoft to any company for all products regardless of the number of copies used.  Commodore went on to produce literally millions of machines with various forms of Commodore Basic and did not pay Microsoft a single cent after the initial licence purchase in 1976/7. If anyone knows how much this licence cost Commodore I would love to know so please send me an email.

The PET was a hit and in the early days. Commodore was receiving as many as 50 requests a day from small, would be computer stores that wanted to sell the PET.  Jack was in the luxurious position of being able to pick and choose his dealers.  He insisted all stores have:

• a good business history

• a retail store front

• an in store service technician

• a parts inventory, and most importantly

• pay Commodore a cash deposit in advance for all orders

Within a year Commodore had enough negative feedback about their chiclet keyboard that they decided to introduce a standard keyboard model.  To accomplish this they had to remove the integrated cassette tape drive.  Just after that, the expensive metal cases were replaced with plastic cases. By 1980 the PET  had a massive 12" black and white monitor version which later became standard.

I recall buying my Commodore PET 4016 with 9" screen, tape drive and a 2031 170K single floppy drive for about CDN$2000 from my local dealer in Belleville, Ontario in about 1980. I still own that equipment and all devices work like the day they left the factory. (Click on the keyboard picture to the right to see my PET.)  Note that at the time Canadian $ were just better than Par with American $ and that Commodore was a Canadian company with serious operations in Toronto, just a two hours from my house.

Commodore developed many revisions of the PET hardware and firmware, perhaps the most interesting of which is the SuperPET.  Using Ontario Canada's University of Waterloo, Commodore developed the worlds first "co-processor computer". The Commodore SuperPET was a standard Commodore PET 8032 with 6502 processor, plus an expansion board that carried a 6809 processor and 64K more memory.  In fact there was an $795 upgrade kit to convert your 8032 to a SuperPET.  There were two small toggle switches under the right side of the chassis to change which CPU was in use and in what mode the machine was to operate.  The SuperPET ran Waterloo MicroAPL, MicroFORTRAN, MicroBASIC, MicroPASCAL, MicroCOBOL in addition to the standard Commodore Basic version 4.  It was to be used primarily by scientists and students to work off-line from the company's or school's mainframe.  It could then be easily connected to a mainframe and upload whatever was achieved while off-line (i.e. debugged APL code, processed data...).  At a time when mainframes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the SuperPET was truly an innovative machine with a low low retail price tag of just $2795.

By 1982 PET sales were declining with increased competition and Commodore decided to refresh the line with what Commodore called the CBM-II line: the "B" and "P" Series were conceived.  These machines came in many different configurations including ones that did not have integrated monitors.   These were the first production computers to sport the snappy Ira Velinsky designed round case which won an international Industrial Design award.

The "P" or Personal Series machines were demoed at trade shows and a small number of Beta machines were released to Canadian and American dealers to show to prospective clients what they could do.  Unfortunately the dealers started to sell these demo machines.  In case you don't know, Beta means pre-release and not finished.  As such these machines were buggy and got a bad name before they were ever released.  Commodore also thought that the new P Series would cut into their exploding Commodore 64 business so they cancelled the P before it was every officially released.  The P128 inventory which Commodore was able to retrieve from dealers was plowed under in a land fill.

"B" or Business Series machines on the other hand were released in both North America and Europe.  A top of the line Commodore B had:

• two integrated 5.25" drives with a 1MB of capacity (in 1983!)

• 128K of RAM expandable to a mind boggling 1MB

• powerful 6509 CPU at 1Mhz

• potential access to almost every piece of PC business software on the planet (see below)

• Zilog Z80 co-processor board that would allow MS DOS 1.25 and CP/M-86 programs to operate

  • there are only three known 8088 cards in known existence today

  • the only programs that were ever developed to run on these cards were "MS-DOS 1.25 for Commodore B Series" and a developer version of CPM-86 (i.e. no real software)

• the remarkable Commodore SID sound chip

• high resolution graphics

• separate keyboard

• integrated 80 column, 12" Display with swivel base (the P Series was colour!)

• integrated Commodore Basic Version 7

• a smooth, round, sexy case... still today the best looking computer ever mass produced

Even with all this functionality Commodore still not sell the B Series PET's.  They only produced a very small number of business applications for the B.  Commodore refused to support any of its products with much advertising.  This was the time when other world wide companies like IBM had an advert in every magazine and every night on TV.  From the start the B was doomed.  Most B Series were sold in Europe, including the West Germany manufactured C710 'high boy' that I own.  The most popular B was the B-128 and in the end, Commodore managed to sell a measly 15,000 units, mainly in Europe.

Just before Commodore was to plow under the B Series schematics, test machines, and prototype expansion cards, they did what no other computer company had (has?) ever done, hand-over these engineering assets to a third party without charge.  The Chicago B128 Users Group (CBUG) became the keeper of all things "B".  CBUG worldwide members bought hundreds of machines from a company called Protecto Enterprises of New York who were liquidating B machines. The CBUG developed or distributed so much software, hardware and hype around the B, that it may have actually been a viable product for Commodore produce.  However its fate was sealed as Commodore moved on to produce almost exclusively home machines like the VIC20 and C64.

In its last (and weak) attempt to retain some of the Business segment, Commodore went on to produce a few minor revisions of the original Commodore PET including the 8296, which was supposed to include Paper Clip word processor, Oracle database, CalcResult spreadsheet.  Many of these 8296's had ExecuDesk ROM chip on their main board which would start the software but a user would still have to use ExecuDesk disks to run the applications. ICPUG's Joe Griffen informs me that the UK models had their software simply provided on diskette.  The 8296 that I own (from Britain) definitely did not have any ROM integrated software (although I am very grateful to Ernie Chorny of the Toronto PET Users Group for getting me one burned.)

Thus ended the tale of the amazing Commodore PET.

Many Commodore observers believe that three largest factors in Commodores eventual downfall were:

1. It's all but complete failure to advertise / promote its products at a time when big players like IBM were spending millions

2. Jack Tramiel's departure in 1984 which caused Commodore to lose its focus

3. Commodores surrendering of the Business Market to IBM clones when they killed the PET / CBM II lines

My collection of PET's grows every year.  I now have three Chiclet 2001 Pet's, two standard keyboard 2001 PET's, my original 4016 PET, one SuperPET, an 8096, an PET 8296, a C710, and a B128 in the factory box.  I still enjoy playing with them... they are still amazing machines every after all these years.

top of page

Commodore PET Magazine Articles, Manuals, and Brochures:

Magazine Articles
Commodore PET, SuperPET, 4040 and 8050 Frequently Asked Questions  Commodore Magazine  August 1982
Commodore SuperPET Deeper Down - Criticism  TPUG February 1985
SuperPET OS/9 Released  TPUG February 1986
PET Preview & Disassembly Of a Chiclet PET 2001  Electronics Today Feb 1978
Wood Chassis Prototype Commodore PET 2001 Comparison to Competition Popular Science Oct 1977
Commodore PET 2001 Review Creative Computing December 1980
Commodore Quarter Century: From Retail Shop to Global Giant Torpet November 1983

Commodore SuperPET Technical Service Manual & Schematics Manual
Commodore PET 2001 Quick Reference Pamphlet

Commodore PET 40"x30" Retail Store Wall Poster

PET 8296 ExecuDesk Software ROMs

Commodore PET Chronology and ROM Versions:
Much of the content below was provided courtesy of Joe Giffen of the ICPUG reprinted with permission Feb 21, 2003

1976

• MOS Technologies finishes development of the 6502 processor is bought by Commodore.

• ---

1977 January

• Chuck Peddle shows the first PET to Radio Shack, hoping to have them retail it.

• Commodore PET 2001 announced at the West Coast Computer Faire. A complete unit ready to plug in to a mains supply and go. The machine was programmable in BASIC and set the pattern for many machines to come in that it used a non-standard form of ASCII code (often called PETSCII) in which two complete character sets were available. One set comprised upper and lower case letters while the other, the default, had upper case letters and block graphics symbols. This arrangement has carried right through to the 128. The machine also set the pattern to come with outlets being provided for connection of a second cassette drive, IEEE peripherals and non-intelligent peripherals (via a user port). It was available with 4K of user memory and is most easily recognised by its small calculator style keyboard and built-in cassette drive. The Operating System contained a number of errors, most of which were corrected in later versions of the PET. The Operating System of these early PETs is variously described as "OLD ROM", "ORIGINAL ROM" or "BASIC1". These machines power on with the message:
  
  *** COMMODORE BASIC ***
  xxxx BYTES FREE

• ---

1979 Spring

• The 2001-16 and 2001-32, introduced in 1979, were the outcome of the first and most significant revision of the PET. The memory was at the same time expanded to give options of 16K or 32K. A full size GRAPHICS keyboard was fitted leaving no room for a built-in cassette drive. The Operating System was totally revised, becoming what is know as "NEW ROM", "UPGRADE ROM" or "BASIC2". This removed most of the bugs of "BASIC1". These machines power on with the message:
  
  ### COMMODORE BASIC ###
  xxxxx BYTES FREE
  
  At the same time the peripherals which had been promised for so long finally arrived. These were the 2000 series printers and the 2040 disk drive (DOS 1).

• ---

1979 Fall

• Commodore releases the upgraded PET 2001 series sporting a larger keyboard, expandability to 32k and an improved (bug fixed) BASIC 1.2 which includes disk support.

• The PET was given a new name for sale in Europe, CBM 3000.  This was purely a cosmetic change and the machines are as described above for 2001-16 and -32. The dual disk drive 2040 was also rebranded becoming the 3040 for Europe. The new DOS 1.2 had some, but not all, of the bugs removed.

• ---

1980 Summer

• Commodore PET 4000 Series is born in North America. In the summer of 1980 Commodore introduced a new range of machines, with a further revision of the Operating System, containing built-in Disk Commands. This Operating System is known, from its power-on message as "BASIC4". Two principal sizes of memory were available, 16K and 32K.

• Like their predecessors, these machines had 40 column screens and Graphics keyboards. Originally these machines were fitted with 9" screens

• ---

1981 Summer

• Following the introduction of the 8032, 12" screens were fixed as standard. These later 4000 series machines are commonly referred to as "FAT-40" machines. These machines power on with the message:
  
  *** COMMODORE BASIC 4.0 ***
  xxxxx BYTES FREE
   

• The peripherals were again upgraded, the disk drive became the 4040, running DOS 2.1 which allowed true relative files. The printers were replaced with the 4022, a unit based on the successful Epson MX-70.  8000 Series. Shortly after the introduction of the BASIC4 machines, COMMODORE released their first 80 column machine (the 8032). The PET had finally come of age!

• This had a 12" screen and a built-in 'beeper'. It was fitted with a standard 32K of memory and the BUSINESS keyboard (often criticized by those who grew up with the 40 column machines). These machines power up, in lower case, with the message:

  *** commodore basic 4.0 ***
  31743 bytes free
   

• With the new machine came a further range of peripherals. The 8050, a high density disk drive was introduced with 500K-bytes of storage on a disk and a 132 column printer (the 8023) also appeared.

• Commodore introduces the University of Waterloo engineered SuperPET, a 96k 8000 series PET sporting both a 6502 or 6809 processor. The 6809 mode offers the use of loading in disk based languages and interfacing via a true RS-232 port to larger mini and mainframe computers for programming and language development

• It was around this time that a group of workers at Commodore in Japan are alleged to have put together a computer for their children. The machine was designed to plug into a television set and had colour output. There is a rumor that the machine was given BASIC 2, because those were the chips which were lying around the office. I doubt this, because the operating system is not the same BASIC 2 as in the PET, but is a derivative, having different input/output routines and, of course, the colour features. It may be that the only source code available was BASIC 2! Whatever the truth, that machine went on to become the VIC 20 and set the pattern for a range of cheaper home computers leading to the C44. It was their concentration on the expanding home computer market which led, in my opinion, to Commodore's loss of their lead in the business market.

• In 1981 came the first of a number of variants on the 8032; a machine, known as the 8096, having an additional 64K of memory, not directly accessible from BASIC. A further variant, introduced at the same time, was the SuperPET (CBM 9000) (Micro Main-Frame in Europe) with both 6502 and 6809 processors. This supported a number of other languages, including FORTRAN.

• ---

1983 - Early

• Commodore announced three new ranges of machines (64, 500 and 700). I attended a 'Commodore Show' hosted by my dealer and my notes reveal that the 500 and 700 machines were not actually on display. At the time I described the machines as follows:

  • Commodore 64 - This machine is the cheapest of the new CBM machines. It is an extension of the popular VIC machine and is aimed at the advanced hobbyist.

  • Commodore 500 - The 500 series is described by CBM as the "Professional/Scientific" computer. The machine features a 40 column colour display, although as with the 64, no screen is provided with the basic machine.

  • Commodore 700 - This series of machine is described by CBM as the "Business" computer. The machines in this range cater for an 80 column monochrome screen, which can either be supplied with the machine, or in the form of a separate monitor. The machine can run most of the software which is available for our 8032/8096 machines, although some of the more advanced techniques (such as screen addressing) may not work without modification. The 700 series will have BASIC as their standard language but will be able to accept PASCAL, FORTH, LOGO and other "soft-loaded" languages. Additionally, both the 500 and 700 series machines can accept a "second processor" option of either a Z-80 or 8088 microprocessor. These will allow the machine to run under either of the "Industry Standard" systems of CP/M-86 or MS-DOS, allowing a vast range of programs to be used.

• Of these machines, the 64 has, of course, been an incredible success; the 500 was still-born and the 700 was re-launched at least twice, before being finally ditched in favour of a revamped version of the 8000 series.

• At the time the 700 was announced, the final floppy disk variant, the double sided 8250 was introduced, giving 1 megabyte of storage on standard 5.25 floppies.

• In Jan '83 the 8000 series was given a facelift by adoption of the Porsche designed casing of the 700. Popular rumour at the time suggested that the suffix "-SK" did in fact stand for "Smoove Kase"!

• Although the new packaging made a few differences to the connections - edge connectors were replaced with IEEE 'D' connectors, the Operating System was the same as on earlier 8000 series machines.

• ---

1984 - 1985

• Over the next two years Commodore produced a few more variants of the 8000. The 8296 featured 96K of additional RAM. At the time Tom Cranstoun was reported as saying that 32K of this could only be got at by the user opening the machine and changing the links. The final versions of the 8296 were the 8296D with a built in 8250 drive and the 8296GD with a high resolution graphics board and drive. The operating system was still BASIC 4.

• ---

February 1986

• In America, the 700 (or B) series is currently enjoying far greater support than it ever did when it was available. Commodore gave away most of the rights of the Bs to the Chicago B128 Users Group (CBUG) who have taken 'the orphan' to their breast and a truly incredible amount of development work has been carried out by their members.

• A 1M-byte expansion is available and the 8088 Second processor which never appeared for sale has been rescued from the depths of Commodore's research labs and CP/M-86 is now available for the 'B'.

• On the software front, having been given a release by CBM to obtain all material for the 'B', their people have managed to set up some good deals with the software houses. Superoffice is available with Superbase V2! Oh, Precision, how we would love that for the 8096. Precision have also produced Superscript 3 for the 'B'. Version 3 is the menu driven one seen on the 64 and 128.  JCL's 700 workshop was available under licence to CBUG members for about $30, and the Petspeed compiler (my favourite) was available for $99.

• CBUG have also obtained a lot of original Commodore documentation (much of it rescued in the nick of time as Corby was closing) including the 8088 schematics & CP/M-86 info (40pp), software dev't info (302pp) and the original Programmers Reference (798pp).

• ---

1986

• Commodore abandons the Business market when it dropped the 8296 and ended the 'PET' range

top of page

How to Identify Your Commodore PET Hardware:
Reprinted with permission of the author, Joe Griffen of the ICPUG Feb 22, 2003

At each introduction of a new machine CBM have provided the users with the chance to upgrade their machines and third parties like Mick Bignall and Supersoft have been in the fore with conversions. Thus the label on the front of the machine may have little bearing on what lies within. Tom Cranstoun has what appears from its labels to be a 2032, large keyboard machine (or is it a 2016!). When switched on, the 9" screen powers up in lower case with the BASIC 4 legend. Even then, the fact that the machine is an 8096 is hidden.

Switching on a 'PET' will reveal what operating system lurks within.  For those with BASIC 2 machines, an upgrade to BASIC 4 (while still maintaining the option to switch to BASIC 2) is available from Supersoft. This board, 'The BASIC 2+4' normally sold for £65+VAT. The upgrade to BASIC 4 is well worthwhile for the improvements to the operating system (better string handling and disk commands).

Disk drives may be harder to identify. One method which sorts most out is to format a disk in the drive:

OPEN 1,8,15:PRINT#1,"N0:TEST DISK,TD":CLOSE 1 works with all drives. Follow this with LOAD "$0",8 then LIST to see the disk directory. The number of blocks free will tell you the drive type:

670 blocks - 2040 or 3040
664 blocks - 4040
2052 blocks - 8050
4133 blocks - 8250

The 'single density' drive x040 cannot be upgraded to double density 8050 standard but an upgrade (again from Supersoft) will convert the 2040 or 3040 into a 4040. The normal price was £55+VAT. In addition to providing Relative files, the upgrade removes a number of bugs and gives automatic recognition of the disk without the need for 'initialization'.

My final advice to all PET owners is to follow my example of 1982; buy Rae West's book. 'Programming the PET/CBM' West is published by Level Ltd. 

top of page

Commodore PET Pictures:
Click to enlarge any picture

Prototype PET 2001 Advert Notice that the rounded edges on PET pictures to the left. This was a prototype machine. The main picture to the right is the standard UK production model 2001.	Commodore PET 2041 5.25 Floppy Drive 1978/79 Facinating product that I do not beleive was ever produced. This unit required ROMs to be added to the PET because it did not have the standard Commodore / MOS CPU (Mos 6504?) that was in all other Commodore Drives like the 1541, 2040,4040, 8050...	Commodore PET 2021 Printer 1978/79 I do not beleive this electrostic printer was ever produced.	Commodore PET 2020 Printer 1978/79 I do not beleive this dot matrix printer for the PET was ever produced. Look at the SIZE of that thing.	Commodore PET 2001 Factory This is the Commodore PET factory, likely in Palo Alto California in 1978.
Commodore PET B700 Factory This Commodore PET B700 "High Boy" factory was likely in Pensylvania in 1984.	Commodore PET 2001 Original owners manual	Commodore PET 2001 Booklet	William Shatner Commodore PET Cardboard Standup In store promo. An 8000 series PET was used in the first Star Trek movie and apparently several others. It was painted gold and could be seen in Captian Kirk's living quarters. Same clothes, same hair, same PET... this appears to have been taken at the same time as the ad next to this one.	Commodore PET with William Shatner Captain James T Kirk of the USS Commodore!
Commodore PET British Advert	Commodore C700 British Advert The best looking computer every made!	Commodore PET British Advert	Commodore PET British Advert	PET: Trade In Your Sinclar
British PET - Kit Spencer The man himself, Kit Spencer!	Italian Ad for Commodore PET 2001 Translated to English reads "Commodore To Work With Satisfaction" from Harden in Cremona Italy / Italia	Commodore PET 8296SK This was the end of line for the Commodore PET. Clearly the best looking computer ever made, its round chassis was designed by Porche! The round chassis was introduced on some 8032 models and was contined on in the B and P Series Commodore PET II lines. The SK designation indicates Separate Keyboard. The end of this line signified the end of Commodore's work in the business market, which many reviewers believe was one of many serious errors in strategy which eventually lead to the companies demise.	Commodore PET 8296SK From other angles	RARE PET 200S The Commodore PET 200 is rebaged PET 8096 SK. This particular unit is the S model which designates a Swedish keyboard to enable characters like Å, Ä and Ö. According to Anders G. who is the proud owner of this unit (and provided these pictures, thank you) the S was only sold by two stores in Sweden for a very short time (i.e. it is one of the most rare production models around)
CBM II - B128 The Commodore B128 was the only 6509 based system to achieve any serious, albeit modest production in the United States. This particular unit is serial number #5553! Sporting 128k of memory and the advanced 6509 microprocessor, this model was a part of the CBM-II series which were Commodore's planned replacement line for the aging PET line. This particular model was the only model in the line to see serious production and it did not fair well in the business community. After a relatively short run, the line was ended and the remaining B-128's were liquidated at 'rock bottom' prices through companies like Protecto Industries. (see our OTHER ADVERTS gallery for pricing). Courtesy of Dan Benson... again!	Commodore PET 510 Also very rare PET using MOS 6509 CPU, 6581 SID and 128K RAM. The 510's used the VIC-II 40 column Hi-Resolution colour graphics video chip.	CBMII - Commodore 610 The Commodore 610 - the only 6509 based system to achieve any serious, albeit modest production in Europe. See the B128 item for more details. Courtesy of Dan Benson.	Commodore C710 The rare 710 was part of the CBM-II line C= developed in the mid '80s as a successor to the Commodore PET. This computer was state of the art. It contains a 6509 processor, which allows for access of up to 1mb of ram in a unique 'banking' method - much more advantageous than the 6502 banking schemes. It also it contains a SID sound chip - highly unusually for what was billed as a business machine! The CBM-II models were Commodore's last effort to capture the business market with it's superior proprietary technology. It contains Commodore BASIC 4.0 IEEE-488 peripheral compatibility, an RS232-C port, and 80 column text video capability. This particular model has a whopping 128k, and according to Commodore literature, is expandable to over 700k. The CBM 710, along with its equally rare stablemate the CBM 720, represent the top of the CBM-II line. The stylishly curved plastic case with detachable keyboard and and built in monitor are a contrast to the rest of the line.	Commodore Gives B Series to CBUG Courtesy of Edward Shockley. Click HERE for his well written and comprehensive B&P Series website.
CBM 2023 PET Dot Matrix Printer It's definately a rare one. Made for the PET 2001-8.	Ultra Rare Commodore 8280 8" Dual Drive This is the 35 pound Commodore 8280 8" disk drive. Commodore briefly put out these 8", 1 meg drives at the end of the 1970's to compliment the PET computer line. Courtesy Dan Benson.	Commodore PET Educator / PET 64 / Educator Commodore 64 in a standard PET chassis used primarily by teachers in the class	Commodore PET 64K Upgrade Board Yes... you read it correctly... just 64K required all this equipment and space. I have not seen a price list for this unit but I expect that when it was new (likely around 1980) it likely would have sold for US$750. I own this board along with an 8K 2001 which has a similar expansion board which for 24K (bringing the total to 32K). This was a HUGE amount of memory for 1980.	Commodore PET Accoustic Coupler Modem 8010 Yes... This is how is was done in the old days. Jam your telephone handset into two rubber holders to allow the sound from the 'modem' to transfer to your phone line. WOW this was bad technology... but there were no options for most people and companies in the last 1970's and early 1980's because most phones did not have 'jacks'; phones were hardwired into the wall just like a light switch.
Commodore PET Cassette Interface This was an after market item that you could use to connect any cassette player to your PET	Commodore PET Eprom Burner	The Amazing Commodore SFD 1001 What is so unusual about this drive, you ask? Well simply put, this drive allows you to store a full meg of data on regular single density disks!! Pretty amazing when you consider when these drives were made!!(The early 80s.) There were hard drives at this time with 1 meg capacities and this drive manages to do it on cheap single density disks!! We can only put 1.44MB on High Density floppies even today (2003). There are probably only a few hundred of these left in the world. Courtesy of Paul Gable. The SFD-1001 which was sold mostly through liquidators was an IEEE-488 based drive. Back in the days when these were being sold I heard it said that SFD stood for 'Super Fast Drive' because it was parallel. At the time when 1541's reigned, drive speed was incredibly slow. Courtesy of Daniel Bingamon The Single Floppy Disk 1001 works with PET or C64/128 hardware. It was essentially half an 8250 drive and had a parallel IEEE input connection. As such, it needed an I an IEEE cartridge on the C64/128. Joe Griffen.	Computhink PET Floppy Drive & RAM Board The CompuThink 'ExpandaPET' system required the board you see here to be installed in the PET chassis. In addition to allowing a PET 2001 to use the drive, it added 32K of RAM to the system. This drive is historically important because it was the very first PET drive beating Commodore to market by nearly a year. It uses a proprietary DOS so the disk format and commands are incompatible with Commodore branded drives. However, it was substantially faster the Commodore units. Richard Tobey designed the ExpandaPET and disk drive interface hardware and Mike Korns wrote the DOS for the drive system. Compu/Think went on to create their own product that was also 6502 based called The MiniMax. This was a 2mhz 6502 with a 12" 80x25 screen, full keyboard and numeric pad, plus 2 8" or 5.25 floppy drives.. It was introduced in 1979. LAter they changed their name to Momentum Computer Commodore.ca owned one of these previously but just never had the time to install it. It looks quite complex.	SuperPET CMS-2001 Process Control System TORPET Nov 1983
Softbox by SSE for Commodore PET / CBM There were several products like these in the early 80's. They were the core basic building block of what today would be called a LAN. Allowing users (typically to a maximum of 8 machines) to share a floppy drive and in the unlikely event a user could afford a harddrive (typically 5MB to 10MB - not GB!) they could share that to. Compute August 1982	Diskshare 9000 This device was used to allow Commodore PETs to share a floppy drive between systems. My high school bought a MUPET system to do the same thing and after a year or so gave up because of reliability problems.	PET Switch Kit Handic of Sweden produced these units to share / network a single floppy drive, hard drive, or printer.	Canadian Microdevices Double Muppet This device was used to share a single printer or floppy drive on up to 8 different PET machines. The double Muppet was interesting because you could daisy chain more units together to expand your sharing abilities. Note the TELEX number at the bottom right of the screen. This is from 1979/80 which is well before the advent of fax machines.	Swedish Commodore PET Manual This manual was included with Commodore PET 200S' Courtesy of Anders G.
WordPro For PET Creative Computing October 1980	Commodore SuperPET Manuals	Commodore Germany Commodore add showing a clone laptop/portable PC produced only in/for Europe and an PET/CBM 8096 Rough Translation is: The New & the Succesful From Commodore A new 16-Bit MS-DOS Computer for the Enterprise with Commodores high standards... I have no date, but I expect it is from about 1986.	Commodore Japan for PET CBM 4016 and 8000 Series The advert shows the VIC 1000 series (i.e. VIC20) and the CBM 4000 8000 PET. It makes reference to PET 2001 as well as VisiCalc and WordCraft80.	West German Commodore PET Serial Number tag

top of page