Reasons to (or not to) get a PET

[Omega-TI]

That is so freaking cute!

 

I love these modern storage devices for Classic Iron!  I believe it gives these systems new lives.

 

 

 

[bluejay]

I found an open source project and I'll try to make a design from it. In other news, grandmas are awesome! I paid each of them a visit for the first time in about a year and both gifted me $180. Now I can just barely afford a PET.

[bluejay]

All the PETs on ebay in the $500-600 price range have sold, the $550 PET 2001-32N with BASIC 1.0 and the $699 4032, both with business keyboards. Can't believe that's the actual going price for a PET.

[carlsson]

Me neither. Then again I read the other day about someone who was lucky to find a 8250LP for £200 as those usually go for $699 on eBay. I sold mine earlier this year for $150, seems like a bargain for the buyer.

[bluejay]

Buying expensive stuff isn't a good idea in the first place, for me at least. California charges 13% tax on everything so if I had bought that 4032 I'd have to pay a whopping $90 extra.

[carlsson]

Tell me about it. While we don't have customs per se on electronics, we have to pay 25% VAT + handling fees on all incoming packages from outside the EU. In principle the shipping cost should be included in the declared value but usually they only base it on actual goods value.

[mozartpc27]

Years ago, in 1995-1996, well after the days of the PET, I was a junior in high school, and my high school had a rarely used science lab that had, as I recall, around a dozen PETS sitting on tables, unused, and basically waiting to be tossed.  Even then I was very much into Commodore and I only vaguely knew what they were, since my love had been the 64, and I thought to myself, “You know, those are just sitting there clearly never to be used again.  I should ask for one.”

 

I was a kiss-ass and very book smart and thus popular with teachers and administrators, and I’ll bet they would have given me one.  But I never did.  A few years later, after I’d graduated, there was a rather serious fire in that portion of the high school, nobody hurt but plenty of property damage.  If they were not tossed by that point they were almost certainly destroyed.

 

The moral of the story: always ask the question.

[Omega-TI]

On 11/8/2020 at 8:37 PM, bluejay said:

In other news, grandmas are awesome! 

 

They are!  I've heard stories of grandma's making some really neat dust covers over the decades for many different classic computer systems.  It's amazing what older ladies can do with a little fabric, needle and thread.  Hmmm, you've given me an idea for a new thread.

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, Omega-TI said:

I've heard stories of grandma's making some really neat dust covers over the decades for many different classic computer systems.

hrrmmmm ya know, you have given me an idea.  I can probably get the material, I know how to sew, and I got my lady a sewing machine five years ago that has been used only a handful of times since.

[bluejay]

I've got half of a PET 4016 for Christmas. By that I mean I had to pay for the other half with my own money. It meant giving up all the little Nintendo knick knacks I was planning on buying, but hey, a PET. It's like the dream of any Commodore fan.

It's a 4016-N with the graphics keyboard(I don't like the business keyboard due to the fact that they lack an easy way to input PETSCII graphics and the odd cursor key placement) 9" green phosphor CRT, and with a metal case as far as I can tell from the pictures. As far as I know it's easy to upgrade to 32k; just solder some extra 4116s onto empty slots. From what I've read Commodore filled all the holes in the blank slots with solder so people would buy the 4032 instead of easily upgrading a 4016, but I mean, it can't be that difficult. Another plus, although minor, is the fact that the big front logo sticker thing says "PET" instead of "CBM". It's slightly beat up in places but nothing that I won't be able to clean up.

I'm almost 50% sure it'll arrive all bashed up though. The guy was located far too north. If that ever happens... well, we'll talk about it when it actually happens.

Regarding SD card solutions, I'll have to see what becomes of that cbmSD mini project. If it turns out to be pretty cheap then I plan on getting one of those. Looking at how things are going I don't think I'll survive with just a C2N Datasette. But I still can't justify paying over $100 for an SD2PET or a petSD+, or paying a ludicrous amount for an actual floppy drive. If it really comes down to it I'll make my own but I that's only if there's no other way.

In other news, I vow never to buy a computer made in the 20th century... ever, unless you know, I find a $5 Commodore 65 at a garage sale.

I've never been able to find proper release dates for PETs other than the original 2001. Is there a source where I could find more info and history on the later PETs?

[christo930]

On 11/6/2020 at 6:09 AM, bluejay said:

There are a few examples on ebay for around $600. One's a 32k 2001N. It's one of the cheapest and accepts offers, but the 2001N's porportions look kind of odd to me, compared to the later models. One's a 4032. It's nice but $699. The rest is too expensive.

I hope I'll be able to find a cheap example at some point and I'm more than willing to save up around $600 for a PET if those are the only downsides to the PET. I mean, it's a really nice computer to have, isn't it? Kinda like the original Fat Macs.

SD2PET is interesting but expensive. I wish there was an open source thing you could build so I could design my own board and sell remainders for cheap. But then again most people who can afford a PET wouldn't mind spending an extra $100 for an SD2PET. Maybe price will lower as time goes on.

 

If you are not sitting around rationalizing twice as much, you're the wrong person to be considering it.  Once the initial YouTube video is made and waste a couple of days getting it to do stuff you will never actually use it for, it will become a decoration that's kind of ugly to the vast majority of people.

 

The AIO Macs of the early days have some major advantages over the PET.  For one, they are small.  Without the keyboard, mouse and pile-o-disks so ubiquitous with such things, they don't even take up a full square foot of space. They are neat and clean looking. They are highly iconic and instantly recognizable. Virtually every American will recognize it.  They boot up to something resembling a modern computer.  Remember, they are booting up to the Finder.  You can easily launch, say, a word processor that virtually anyone can do the basics on.  The PET has none of this.

 

I cannot think of a single reason to own a PET. Granted, I am not the right person for a PET, but neither are most people.

 

Getting one that is working is only 1/2 the battle. It might be all original and working. If it is, it needs an overhaul.  But it likely won't be working or if it is, recently reconditioned, which means more money.  When you buy something that doesn't work in every detail, assume the worst.  Don't assume it just needs new caps or something.  Assume the monitor needs replacing. Assume the keyboard needs to be disassembled, cleaned, repaired and then reassembled (a full overhaul and probably some parts too). Assume the motherboard has bad custom chips on it and that someone other than you will need to be paid by the hour to diagnose and repair it. To add to all this expense, assume no warranty by anyone you pay to touch it. It's a 40 year old machine that could fail at any moment.  Also assume that nobody local will touch it and that in addition to paying a small fortune to work on it, you will pay another small fortune to ship in both directions.  All of these things and more might not happen, but Murphy's law and all.    If you think buying it and dumping another 100 dollars into it to buy a CF adapter is too expensive, you are probably not the right person to buy such a computer.

 

After all the expense and hassle and trips to the post office, you are going to own an expensive ugly boat anchor that's big and takes up a decent amount of space and whose styling doesn't fit with modern home decor and with no cool games to play (in green screen). At best, it gets displayed in some room nobody ever sees.

 

 

[bluejay]

As a whole $100 might not be a significant amount compared to a $450 computer. But you get a lot more bang for your buck when paying $450 for a PET than $100 for an SD2PET. I'd rather pay $450 for a PET, than, say, a grapefruit for $50 even though $50 is a lot cheaper than $450.

The listing I chose showed a working monitor, working motherboard, working keyboard, with all 15359 bytes of RAM present in the pictures. If it's otherwise when I check it myself I can get a refund instead of paying an extra $200 to get it repaired.

If it does work though, I can nearly guarantee you it won't serve as a big paperweight. First of all, I, personally, think the PET is a beautiful machine. That's all that matters to me. It's not like I'm going to have it on display on a nice glass case in the middle of Times Square for people to look at and say boo. Much more importantly, I'm actually going to use my PET. I don't know why myself, but I find a certain kind of pleasure playing around with and using an ancient, technically awful computer. I had a lot of fun playing around with a KIM-1 emulator a while back, typing in some machine language programs and running games on it. If I had fun with that I think it's safe to say I'll have fun with a PET.

Anyways, it's too late to change anything now, so I guess we'll see how it turns out.

[christo930]

2 hours ago, bluejay said:

As a whole $100 might not be a significant amount compared to a $450 computer. But you get a lot more bang for your buck when paying $450 for a PET than $100 for an SD2PET. I'd rather pay $450 for a PET, than, say, a grapefruit for $50 even though $50 is a lot cheaper than $450.

The listing I chose showed a working monitor, working motherboard, working keyboard, with all 15359 bytes of RAM present in the pictures. If it's otherwise when I check it myself I can get a refund instead of paying an extra $200 to get it repaired.

If it does work though, I can nearly guarantee you it won't serve as a big paperweight. First of all, I, personally, think the PET is a beautiful machine. That's all that matters to me. It's not like I'm going to have it on display on a nice glass case in the middle of Times Square for people to look at and say boo. Much more importantly, I'm actually going to use my PET. I don't know why myself, but I find a certain kind of pleasure playing around with and using an ancient, technically awful computer. I had a lot of fun playing around with a KIM-1 emulator a while back, typing in some machine language programs and running games on it. If I had fun with that I think it's safe to say I'll have fun with a PET.

Anyways, it's too late to change anything now, so I guess we'll see how it turns out.

Still, unless it has been recently refurbed, you should definitely at least check the power supply if you are capable of doing that.

I am not one for "preventative repairs," but there is high voltage here a decent amount of power and probably has not been run regularly in decades.  If you can do it yourself, it's not a big deal. It only becomes a big deal when you have to pay someone else to do it.

 

 

Sounds like you're going to really enjoy it. Congratulations.

 

[bluejay]

I can fix and refurb stuff myself, I don't wanna have to carry the thing around all over the place to have it repaired either.

Tell you what, I'll post updates here as things go.

[tommywiz]

Back in the mid 80's I worked at a school district that was moving from Commodore PETS to Mac 128/512's.

That had 100's of PETS and accessories they couldnt give away. Couldnt throw away either because of disposal laws.

Flash forward to mid 90's they were moving from Mac 128/512's to Dell computers.

Same story with even more Mac 128/512's.

 

Both times employees were free to take however many they wanted. Few if any takers, including me!

[Keatah]

Without becoming tedious.

 

The PROs:

1-Near-iconic design. Shows up in movies and TV, like Buck Rogers It25thC, StarTrek. And in modern-day productions like Mayday/AirDisasters.

2- It's real vintage stuff. And recognizable as such.

3- If you understand TTL logic it's easy to work on like its contemporary competitors.

4- Big. Lots of room to mod and improve, or, just plain work on.

5- Documentation should be readily available, but I haven't gotten into it much.

 

The CONs:

1- It's old old old. Will need tech work sooner or later if not now. And the electronics knowledge to fix stuff up.

2- I personally prefer Apple II material.

3- Parts, you'll need a source.

4- Storage and storage interfacing.

5- Big and bulky monster-sized!

 

And..so let's get some updates!

 

 

[bluejay]

Yeah, forgot about that “updates” part. 
 

I paid $450 for that PET. It was a 9” 4016, graphics keyboard. IMO the best looking PET apart from the blue bezel. 
 

When I arrived, the keyboard was sort of nonfunctional. The entire left half the keyboard was working, the entire right half wasn’t. Odd. I took the thing apart (was extremely easy; hardest part was lifting that heavy cover up) and took a look at the keyboard PCB. Noticed a small crack on the board. Took some pictures, sent it to the seller, asked for a partial refund. He generously gave me $150 (maybe 200, don’t remember) back, as his ad claimed that the keyboard was functional.

 

I took some solder and bridged the broken traces. After that the keyboard worked good as new. 
 

For a while, I used a very annoying method to get files transferred over to the thing. First method I tried was loading a BASIC program onto a C128, saving it to tape, and loading that tape on the PET. You had to enter a certain value into a certain memory address using the monitor on the PET to have the program run correctly, but it did work. 
 

Then I discovered a file copying utility. It let me copy any file from disk to tape. I used that to transfer machine language programs. 
 

Around the same time I bought the PET, I sent an email to Mike Hill (who runs bitfixer) about the PETdisk and PetVet. He let me know that the PETdisk 2.0 (now called the PETdisk MAX) had just finished testing and was ready to be sold. He also told me the ROMulator was the new replacement for the PetVet. I got to purchase both for $30. This was running an earlier version of his PETdisk MAX firmware, so it only supported PRG files. However, he has since updated it to support SEQ files and added the ability to mount D64s. I will say this, this product is less pretty to look at than an SD2PET. But for $30, I think it’s still the better one to buy. I mean, how much time are you gonna spend looking into the back of your PET?

 

The ROMulator was used to upgrade my RAM to 32k. It was especially handy because Commodore had punched holes through the empty RAM sockets on the motherboard to prevent you from upgrading the RAM the traditional way. 
 

I built a little module to plug into the user port that served as a TTL serial port and sound output, as my PET didn’t have a speaker built in. I used a USB to TTL adapter to hook it up to my modern computer, and used TCPSER to call some BBSes. Spent a good while playing games on some of those. 
 

The PET turned out to be very fun to play with, despite the weird keyboard layout. The games were surprisingly fun, even though they were limited to PETSCII characters. I found very impressive ports of Tetris, Pac Man, Galaxian, and Defender. I even found a really fun stock trading game, in which it took an hour or so to be a billionaire in. 
 

I also did some programming in BASIC, typing some sample programs off old magazines I found on the internet. Sadly the assembler I found for the PET didn’t seem to want to work. I messed about with the machine language monitor for a bit, but it isn’t exactly an environment where you would want to write any complex program in. But at least it’s better than the monitor built into Apple IIs, thanks to its screen editor. Works just like in BASIC!

 

I have looked into converting a 1541 into a PET drive, but I didn’t think it was worth the effort.

 

I packed up my PET when I was getting ready to move to Korea. I took the precaution of detaching the CRT and putting it in a separate box, which was full of clothing. I’ve since moved into my new home, but my parents won’t let me open the boxes until the furniture is in. I’ll be able to open it this Tuesday (Monday for those in the US).

[Frozone212]

Reason not to? they byte. Feed them chips to prevent being hurt

[Keatah]

Nibbles & Bits

[bluejay]

Oh, I’ve fed it all sorts of things. It’s tried to byte me a few times but only succeeded in a few nybbles. Not eager to find out what would happen if I let it go hungry for too long!

[Retrospect]

Reminds me of the mid 80's when I lived in a small village called Outwood, near Wakefield , UK.

 

A mate of mine, Andrew they called him, local geek not many took to him but I liked him as he was a fellow computer enthusiast like me.  Once went up to his house, to go use his computer with him as he said he'd got one that wasn't like anyone else's.  Now bear in mind this is at a time when most people had C64's, Spectrums, Amstrads, BBC's etc .... I hadn't a clue at the time what this thing was but it turned out to be a Commodore Pet with the original strange chiclet keys and a blue label.  He had a few bits of software for it but poked around in BASIC a lot.  I remember him saying it was 16K but he said it like Jeremy Clarkson says "Jaaaaag!" when describing a Jaguar car.  He either wasn't aware there were Spectrums and C64's or he just really loved his PET.  

I never knew at the time what it was so couldn't appreciate it for being part of the original line-up of home micro's one year after I was born.

 

The funny thing was at the time I owned a Tandy TRS-80 model 1 level 2 machine!  Another part of the same trinity.