The Amazing Commodore PET
by Ian Matthews of Commodore.ca Feb 22, 2003
Last Revised Dec 30 2018
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First 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 Personal Computer. (See the
note at the bottom of this page for a verification of this date).
The PET came fully functional out of the box with:
a keyboard
including 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 the powerful new 1 Mhz MOS 6502 processor
many
expansion sockets additional RAM or a Processor board
4K of memory
power supply
a cassette tape drive which was a practical storage device
for the time
several expansion ports including an RS232 (serial) port
ability to handle and create fantastic graphics (for the time)
upper
and lower case text
an operating system that was burned onto a ROM chip
and loaded on boot… WOW that was cool
All this was wrapped up in a
solid steel, good looking, white chassis. The prototype PET’s chassis
(shown in the photo at the top of this page) used rounded edges that was
likely designed by Ira Velinsky. Commodore was a notable manufacturer of
metal filing cabinets so when it came time for production, they decided to
use the now familiar square cases to keep production costs down.
The PET was a revelation as all previous home computers were little
more than circuit boards that could only be understood by hard core
enthusiasts like the members of the Home Brew Computer clubs.
Inside the Commodore PET
The
first prototype PET demonstrated at the 1977 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.
The visionary engineer behind
this project was Chuck Peddle. The worlds first Personal Computer was not
ready even a week before the show and in the three days leading up to CES,
Chuck worked 20 hours a day getting the PET prototype functional; he
completed this now historic task only a few hours before the doors opened.
A year earlier, in the spring of 1976 Chuck Peddle, who worked not for
Commodore but for MOS Technologies‘, completed development of the
versatile and very inexpensive MOS 6502 processor. He and his largely
ex-Motorola colleagues developed the KIM-1 “Computer Trainer” to show off
the functionality of this landmark new chip but that 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 to buy Pennsylvania based
MOS Technologies, its staff, its patents, it production facilities, along
with the PET concept.
Commodore PET 2001
Chicklet Keyboard 1978
At the time Commodore manufactured office
equipment like filing cabinets but its biggest business was in calculators
so it is no surprise that the original production Commodore PET 2001’s had
a sheet metal chassis and calculator style keys 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 founder Jack
Tramiel’s wife. Whatever the origin, Jack thought that PET “sounded” good
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 the February 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 so they could not meet the huge demand.
They managed to assemble a meager 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. Then the $795 8K model was actively promoted and the 4K model was
downplayed by indicating 8K machines would ship much sooner than 4K
machines.
When Commodore expanded to Europe in 1978 Jack doubled
the price for the same machine but the only physical change was a 220 watt
power supply. The UK \ EU models were sold under the Commodore PET 3008
3016 and 3032 badges. As was almost always the case in those days, Jack’s
instincts were right; the re-branded but otherwise identical 3000 series
and related future models were highly successful in the European markets
at the higher prices.
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 unlimited 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 beyond
the initial licence purchase in 1976/7.
The PET was a big hit and
in these early days of computers. 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
Commodore PET
plus 2041 Floppy Disk Drive
Within a year Commodore had enough
negative feedback about their almost unusable chiclet keyboard that they
decided to introduce a standard keyboard model. To make space for the
“real” keyboard, they had to remove the integrated cassette tape drive.
Just after that, the expensive metal cases were replaced with cheaper
plastic cases. By 1980 the PET had a massive 12″ green and white monitor
version, dubbed the “Fat 40” 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
(adjusting for inflation that is about $6000 in 2018!) 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 that PET.) 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 integrated expansion board that
carried a Motorola 6809 processor and 64K more memory. In fact there was
an $795 ($1750 in 2018 dollars) upgrade kit to convert your 8032 into a
SuperPET. The SuperPET manufacturing was contracted to BMB CompuScience of
Milton Ontario, Canada.
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 v4. It was to be used primarily
by scientists and students to work off-line from a company’s or school’s
mainframe. A SuperPET could 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 the low low retail price
tag of just $2795 (adjusting for inflation that is about $6000 in 2018).
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
demonstrated 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 many dealers sold those demo machines.
In case you don’t know, beta means pre-release and not finished. As such
these beta machines were buggy so they P Series PET’s got a bad name
before they were even released. Commodore also thought that the new P
Series would cut into their exploding Commodore 64 business so they
cancelled the P line all-together. All of the P128 inventory that
Commodore was able to retrieve from dealers was plowed into 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 some very
impressive specifications:
Commodore-B710-P500-C64-1541-pg1two
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 (2001)
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 failed to sell the
B Series PET’s in quantity and did not support it with very many “B”
specific new programs.
As was always Commodore’s want, they refused
to support any of its products with much in the way of 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 of the B Series units 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 globally.
Commodore-cbm_b_letter-to-Chicago-B-Series-ClubJust 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 tasked with liquidating
the remaining B machines for Commodore.
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 almost exclusively produce home
computers like the VIC20 and C64.
In its last weak
attempt to retain some of the Business segment, Commodore then produced 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 burning me that chip.)
Thus ended
the tale of the amazing Commodore PET.
The three largest factors in
Commodores eventual downfall were:
It’s all but complete failure to
advertise / promote its products at a time when big players like IBM were
spending millions
Founder and visionary Jack Tramiel’s departure in
1984 which caused Commodore to lose direction
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.
Note about the release date of the PET: Because so
many other texts and websites wrongly state that the PET was first seem at
the West Coast Computer Faire, I re-re-rechecked this timing with Chuck
Peddle in April of 2014 and he said “We demo’ed an early version to Radio
Shack at the CES and then did some stories in trade mag using the same
prototype. So, you are right. General public release was at the West Coast
Computer Faire. We had final working versions and sold product in the
Dallas Computer Show in late summer. We took first distributor order with
check at June CES.” Thank you Chuck!
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
Spring 1976 MOS Technologies
finishes development of the 6502 processor
September, MOS and the PET
concept are bought by Commodore
October, Jack Tramiel approves the
development of the PET prototype
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 recognized 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. A 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 B’s 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
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 Ł65+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 Ł55+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 published by Level Ltd.
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