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Commodore Pet

Manufacturer Commodore
Identification,ID Commodore PET
Date of first manufacture1977
Number produced -
Estimated price or cost? $600 ?
location in museum -
donor -

Contents of this page:

Photo
Commodore PET

Placard
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Architecture
Integrated computer, memory, CRT, (tiny) keyboard, tape machine, ROM with BASIC. 6502 microprocessor by MOS Technology (second sourced by Rockwell).

Designer Chuck Peddle

All you needed (except for a printer for the particular) were already assembled, adjusted, and ready to plug in and go. This was the first of the low cost personal home computers that I know of that were so equiped. With the Apple 1 you had to adjust the volume of the (not included) tape recorder to make it work.

The memory bus was extended onto a 100 pin plug on the right hand side, and there was a Hp ? HPIG ? IEEE488 interface out the back.

Special features
Machine powered up, with a BASIC prompt. You could go from there.
  • LOAD (tape program)
  • PRINT n-m (parts or all of a BASIC program)
  • SAVE (program to tape)
  • ...

Keith wrote (February 2004)
The PET was not actually just a single machine, but a whole range of them. The highest-end PET was the SuperPET 9001, which was designed to be used as a programmer's workstation. Interesting tidbit about the original PET: It has a programmable oscillator on it that is keyed to change by writing to a particular memory location. From BASIC, you could break your machine with a single POKE, by setting it too high.

Historical Notes
First machine under the Commodore brand. Later there was a Business model ?Commodore PET 2001? with 32 K memory, a conventional sized keyboard, keypad standard, optional disks, printer, ... . And a Comodore VIC 20 and a Commodore 64

Commodore later made other machines that were not based on the 8 bit 6502 processor. These included the Commodore Amiga based on the Motorola 68000.

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Updated February 11, 2004