The Commodore PET 2001 was one of the very first plug-and-play home computers on the market. With its built-in 40-column monochrome screen, cassette deck, keyboard, 6502 processor, and 4K of RAM, it was ready
to use right out of the box. Over the years, the PET was
incrementally updated, but through its life remained
fundamentally the same. It evolved from a hobby machine
into a business machine, trading its 40-column screen and
tape drive for a more business-friendly 80 columns with
dual disk drives and even hard drives.
Commodore’s CEO, Jack Tramiel knew that the future
was with the low-end home market, so Commodore
started thinking about making a color computer of some
kind. They started with the PET as a base and built
prototypes along the way using various technologies, but
eventually decided to release completely new cost-reduced machines such as the VIC- 20 and C64, using
custom designed chips from their MOS semiconductor
operation.
Fast forward to today. I’ve become a retro computer
collector, re-learning everything about those old machines.
I’ve been a computer programmer and IT guy over the
years, and I’ve tinkered with hardware and electronics but
not seriously. I decided I wanted to get into it more as a
hobby, and wanted a project that could combine
hardware, software, and my love of retro computers into
one. It seemed only natural to pick a project involving the
Commodore PET.
I’ve always been fascinated by Commodore’s
prototypes and wonder what might have been if
Commodore had decided to make a color PET fully
The year was 1977. I was in my early teens, and I happened to be at the mall.
Right there in the department store I saw it ... the Commodore PET 2001. It
sat on a counter all by itself with its small built-in screen, keyboard, and tape
drive, cursor blinking, just begging to be played with. I pecked at the keys
and they magically typed numbers, letters, and strange symbols. I remember
it like it was yesterday. I was hooked. That was the exact moment I knew I
wanted to be a computer geek. A few years later in high school, our
computer room had six PET 4032s and one lone 4040 disk drive. I spent
many hours programming and playing games on those machines, and I've
been a Commodore fan ever since.
Adding Color to the
Commodore PET
44 September 2015
Vintage Computing