Commodore History Part 1- The PET

[@vwestlife]

The "killer poke" originally had a useful purpose: on the older PETs, it would speed up the text display. It was only on the later PETs with the updated design that it would make the video go out of sync and potentially damage the CRT circuitry. After this was discovered, Commodore updated the circuitry to make the CRT immune to the killer poke. So in reality, only a small number of PETs are affected, and actual, verified reports of damage caused by it are rare.

[@raven4k998]

well ddddddaaaammmmm

[@tminusblastedrocket]

Wow

[@hyzercreek]

Is that why facebook got rid of poking?

[@TechHowden]

So I’m not the only one that already knew that

[@addiesworld1855]

bro why arent u verified been watching your good videos for a long time really like those easy listening videos dont know if youll ever see this

[@PinoyBowlerGS92]

Mr. Iwata (President of Nintendo from 2002-2015) was great at programming games on the PET

[@PixelTrik]

In fact, he started programming on PET. He also made taxman, a pacman clone on apple 2, got to know about through AVGN in tiger electronics video. He worked at HAL all the way till HAL became Nintendo's second party developer. Edit: I said it was acquired by Nintendo which wasn't the case.

[@jesusguillen5054]

@@PixelTrik I didn't know that Taxman was made by Iwata. Awesome.

[@voidyt9939]

RIP

[@schwarzenegger_begger8810]

@CP D2191 Maybe not exactly, but I kind of see what you mean.

[@fly7188]

Iwata was one of the greatest programmers of all time.

[@Calilasseia]

Ah, memories. The PET was the first genuine "microcomputer" I used. Prior to that, computing was done using a steam powered terminal hooked up to a mainframe over the phone line. A giant mechanical Olivetti terminal that weighed as much as a small AFV, and made almost as much noise during operation. The PET was a *huge* relief when you come from that background! Using an IEEE-488 interface was a stroke of genius on the part of the PET designers. This is because the IEEE-488 interface was the standard for scientific instrumentation in the 1980s, and as a consequence, you could plug everything from mass spectrometers to desktop sized centrifuges into the PET, and the PET would drive them with a short program consisting of about 25-30 lines of BASIC. Indeed, I used one to drive a weird piece of industrial engraving machinery in 1983, because the machinery used an IEEE-488 interface, and once you understood what commands to send to the machine, you could drive the machine with a 30-line BASIC program. Plug and Play, 1980s style!

[@rootbeerconnoisseur]

huh

[@IncredibleMD]

What kinda Diselpunk setting did you come from, bro?

[@Calilasseia]

@@IncredibleMD ... I'm talking about 1978. Back then, your computer was a mainframe big enough to need its own air conditioned building, which you accessed via a modem over an old fashioned analogue telephone network built into your terminal. Back then, you didn't walk into a shop and walk out with a laptop, you spent a quarter or a million building an air conditioned room, then another quarter of a million on the computer hardware, which was delivered in a large truck and assembled on site. :) Then, there was the terminal. Which didn't have a screen - the output was printed on a big roll of paper. The terminal also had a paper tape reader/writer, which you used to store your program code on reels of stiff paper tape. Frequently, the terminal was heavy enough to be shipped in sections and assembled on site too, because once completely assembled, you needed a fork lift truck to move it. :) This video clip: kzbin.info/www/bejne/enewgmSnicSFfK8 Shows you the sort of device in question, though the one I used was a massive Olivetti terminal that looked like the sort of thing Charles Babbage would have cooked up in the 19th century. In fact, I've just found a photo of the very same terminal I used back in 1978: retroscoop.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/ollivetti_article.jpg That beast was nearly 200 pounds in weight, by the way. More on the fun and games this involved can be read here: retroscoop.wordpress.com/tag/olivetti-teletype-terminal/ Then, we got our hands on the Commodore PET. In our case, the upscale versions with floppy disc drives. After a year using the terminal the arrival of the PETs was like Star Trek coming to life to students in 1979. Instead of having to nurture fragile paper tapes, we could store dozens of programs on floppy discs. And, we had ... wow, GRAPHICS to play with. Primitive by modern standards, but you could write some fairly playable games in BASIC on the PETs, and if you bothered to learn assembly language, the world was your oyster on those machines. Indeed, seeing a speed comparison between BASIC and assembly language was the launchpad for a LOT of assembly language developers in my college. :) About that comparison ... what would take a BASIC program five minutes to achieve, would be done in a fraction of a second if you wrote the assembly language version instead. With assembly language, you're working directly with the processor instruction set, and the program runs at blitz speed compared to an interpreted language like BASIC, because there's no interpreter over head - the CPU just executes the instructions as fast as it can read them from memory. You don't notice this overhead so much with a modern laptop, because the CPU is running at 2 GHz, you have two or even four processor cores running your code simultaneously, and three levels of caching to speed things up even more. Plus, the PET used an 8-bit 6502 as its CPU: modern laptops have 64-bit CPUs with massive address buses that in some cases will access 256 gigabytes of RAM, assuming you can afford to pay for that largesse of course. On a modern laptop, even JavaScript in a browser will update the display at 50 frames per second or more. Comparing a 1979 PET to a modern laptop, is like comparing the Bleriot monoplane to an SR-71. History can be a fascinating subject if you study it. :)

[@Lyle-xc9pg]

Comments like these are literal gold

[@mgtroyas]

@@Calilasseia thank you very much for the explanations!

[@a.wright281]

1: Hey I just got a pet! 2: Wow! What is it? A dog? A cat? 1: No, it's a commodore

[@a.wright281]

2: uhm you didn't have to yell m8 1: YES I DID CUZ U SUCK U A** HOLE

[@drowningin]

I thought the Commodore was a bird in the early 80s to be honest. Doesn't it sound like a type of bird? Anyone?

[@sircheesethethird6179]

2: Wtf is a commodore? 1: IT’S A NAVAL RANK! 2: How tf is a pet related to that? 1: Oh, that commodore. It was an old computer company. 2: 🤦‍♂️

[@vaguefilms]

@@drowningin Yes it does

[@vaguefilms]

2: You F**king Nerd

[@JonHuhnMedical]

In '87 my elementary school was getting rid of their pets to make room for new tech. My brother and I pooled our money and bought one for $50.I was in 6th grade at the time, but that started my love of graphics and programming. So much water under the bridge since then. Thanks for the trip down memory lane :)

[@Zerbey]

The hospital in my home town had a collection of PETs used in patient records. The story goes that they were installed and left running 24/7 for a few years. At some point they needed to do maintenance and so had to shut them all down. Apparently every last one of them failed immediately when they were all powered back on due to fried power supplies.

[@MrDuncl]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWXCfX2BidCBadU Fifteen minutes in there is a PET hard at work in another Hospital.

[@nyccollin]

Doesn't sound very believable. Power supplies wouldn't all get fried at the same time. Can't believe 19 people believed this story.

[@ilcugginocanadese]

Collin Taylor actually if they've been on for a really long time, chances are they won't start back up. I've seen it happen countless times with old pbx systems that used similar power supplies.

[@the_pigs_have_rebelled]

Collin can’t believe 1 person liked your reply

[@Cynthia_Cantrell]

I still remember playing "Star Trek" on a PET in 1977... my teacher had it and we could earn points in class to get time on it. Fun times! Klingons on the screen were the letter "K" and stars were asterisks. It was the first computer I ever had my hands on!

[@funnytree6197]

who pays star trek. EVERYONE PLAY NEO PETS *gasp* i said pet and it it makes no sense

[@FATTYBONGRIPS]

@@funnytree6197 no

[@charles-y2z6c]

That game turned me into a programmer, I saw it on a friends computer, when out and bought one. The BASIC source code was open and I was able to tear into it. 40 years later I still am a software developer.

[@jarnailbrar6732]

When Kirk has the PET in the movie, he should have had the 'Star Trek' game displayed on it. Imagine Kirk and Spock playing 'Star Trek' on a PET !

[@charles-y2z6c]

@referral madness I am 63 years old and do mainly c#, I do some PHP on Unix/Linux platforms too. Sometimes I feel like I have been modifying that program fro 40 years :)

[@ecospider5]

I remember the pet in 3rd grade. We had a manual typewriter at home so yes I instantly recognized the keyboard was ridiculous.

[@2112jonr]

A big thank you for mentioning the BBC Micro. That was huge in the UK. Love the 6502, it has lovely op-codes.

[@noor-rx1ij]

I love your intro jingle. It sounds so much like old 80's infomercials, which has a warm place in my heart ❤

[@corkbulb2895]

I always thought the same thing!

[@grapefruit256-wu5ml]

Me too, but it took me a while. At beginning I was like "yeah, funny. Like in those old TV shows..." Now I love it😊

[@borninator]

Superb! You weren't kidding when you said that Commodore's history has been largely overlooked.

[@daishi5571]

Yep, Commodore were a big part of the reason ppl could afford to have a computer in the house.

[@robintst]

Worked for our household, when my older brother saved up to get his Commodore 128, I got his VIC-20 as a hand me down.

[@SpearM3064]

+Kurt Angerdinger Commodore *is* his thing. Pretty much the first computer he owned was Commodore. While you are factually correct that the PET was the first of the three to be shown at CES, I still want to point out that the Apple was first *demonstrated* and *went on sale* in July 1976, six months *before* CES, with the first 175 being sold within 9 or 10 months. The Apple II was introduced in April 1977; the PET's official release date was SIX MONTHS LATER, in October 1977. Even Wikipedia lists the PET, TRS-80, and Apple as the "1977 Trinity" (they don't use the words "big three"). Out of those, the PET was actually the *least* successful, selling around 1 million units, compared to 1.5 million TRS-80 Model I's and (eventually) 4 million Apple II's. Keep in mind that I'm talking the number of units sold before the product line was cancelled, not the "total number of units sold by 1981" or whatever. I couldn't find any reference for the Apple II having a "faulty disk controller" (though it wouldn't surprise me). Also, I think you misunderstood the "bad video hardware": Only pixels with an even-numbered X coordinate could be violet or blue, and only pixels with an odd-numbered X coordinate could be green or orange. But black and white can be drawn on *any* pixel.

[@SwedishEmpire1700]

Apple been lying about its importance since 1977, basically.

[@TheGeekPub]

The PET is very near to my heart as it was the first real computer my fingers ever touched. It was in the computer lab in my elementary school (same one you went to).

[@royalxturtles9297]

hi geekpub

[@padistedor]

TheGeekPub TRS80 was the first computer my fingers touched in my 8th grade computer intro class.

[@mgregory22]

Me too! I played that lawnmower game!

[@connorbaker8300]

TheGeekPub youre top commment on all this guys vids

[@connorbaker8300]

go away

[@Lyrabon]

WARNING if you feed the PET chips after midnight it will byte you!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Well that explains alot lol

[@AllGamingStarred]

how shocking! should i POKE it if it tries to byte?

[@scaprod558]

pet the pet

[@tmzwm]

Really? Because when I fed mine it RAMed into me.

[@doubleg137]

If the PET bytes you, does that mean you got bit 8 times?

[@MattSinz]

While it's true that most people hadn't used a keyboard back when the PET came out, They probably had used a typewriter and the PET keyboard is worse than any typewriter of the time and even ones as far back as 100 years before it.

[@TheSuperMarioBro]

back in the late 70s, my family had a typewriter, and when my school switched to PETs in the writing lab I did in fact go insane because of the keyboard.

[@twest344]

At my elementary school circa 1983-1986 we had a dozen PET's and a single apple II. I stared at the green flickering screen for hours, and programmed in BASIC! I think they were the 4016 model, regular keyboard, had a speaker, and used an external tape drive with each machine. We also had the huge floppy drive that was "networked" to all the PETs.

[@17659817265781465781]

Commodore: "The PET cannot display graphics" Demoscene: "Hold my beer..."

[@AndersEngerJensen]

^_^

[@scottbreon9448]

Of course it can, where do you think petskii originally came from, LOL

[@luiszuniga2859]

PET was THE first computer of Satoru Iwata (R.I.P.) CEO of Nintendo.

[@dudespoon4852]

Those crazy dudes never fail to impress. Just when you think you've seen every hack...

[@scottbreon9448]

Speccy fans: The commodore 64 cannot do vector graphics properly Norbert Kehrer: Hold my beer

[@cbmeeks]

I really like your long-form videos like this. I would love to see your videos hit the 25-30 minute mark. Especially the history based ones. Great work!

[@AndrosynthNuclear]

The Demoscene has some truly mythical programming skills

[@logan8640]

Nora the Antipaladin They are god damn wizards

[@SyphistPrime]

That's the entire point of it I think. Show off your programming skills and pushing the hardware to its limit. If I recall within recent history we got FMV playback on a 6MHz CPU because of these people.

[@deaniepops1]

I was blown away by the demos too.

[@BastetFurry]

The Demoscene happens when you forgot to tell the coder that something is not possible on a machine. :)

[@StormsparkPegasus]

This is the computer that Satoru Iwata started out on when he decided to get into programming.

[@andrewferguson5653]

This is a real trip down memory lane for me! The PET was my first exposure to desktop computers back in my high school days in the early 1980s.

[@radicalthunder5740]

Booooooooring

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Always entertaining to watch these in-depth series of yours. Being an all IBM PC guy originally, I enjoy learning about the period before I started dabbling with computers myself. I find the demo to be particularly amazing. How do they actually code those re-timings of the screen to produce the graphic? Simply a stunning feat! :)

[@simontay4851]

Yeah, that demo is truly amazing - you wouldn't know that it doesn't have any graphics modes from watching that demo.

[@vytah]

I don't know details on how PET worked, but I guess it's simply a combination of three things: - synching with the video chip, by either asking it for an interrupt or monitoring its internal registers - knowing how many machine cycles are per scanline (probably similar to C64, which had 63-65, depending on model) - changing an appropriate register in the video chip at the appropriate moment during the scanline, similar to CGA low-res mode, used in the 8088 MPH demo for PC

[@shatteryib]

Anders Enger Jensen I'm here for the music

[@KuraIthys]

I was an IBM PC person too when I was younger. (and I guess I technically still am), but wow is it ever a contrived architecture to do graphics on. Sure, the modern iterations are OK, but the older ones have some serious issues with their expansion bus and the implications it has for graphics. the ISA bus is terrifyingly slow if you have to do even EGA quality graphics...

[@AndersEngerJensen]

KuraIthys Yeah, exactly. But then again, at the time I had no real knowledge about the limitations of the ISA bus and such, other than 16-bit had to be better than 8-bit and I knew how the IRQ and BASE addresses worked. For me, it kinda worked like a charm, after figuring out how to get both my Roland MPU-IPC-T and Sound Blaster Pro to work.

[@guilherm502]

7:00 Yes, I paused to read that nonsense ;-)

[@FerroequinologistofColorado]

I stopped to read it as well

[@DeathMetalDerf]

Me too, and I do it every frickin time I catch a video that has a bunch of text on the screen that doesn't get narrated line by line, lol. I'll actually skip back to the very moment the text appears on-screen, and if i don't do this, my brain starts to flip out. I'll lose sleep over it if i don't. Perhaps I should have a chat with a specialist about this.....

[@DuckReconMajor]

shakespear! y the way

[@salty-9]

Samee lmao 😂😂

[@TheGameFreak000]

So did I, and I caught 2 typos, too!

[@Pheorize]

New 8-Bit Guy episode, this will be a good evening!

[@Liofa73]

It's only 20min, how many times are you going to watch it? :)

[@JaegerDives]

Important to note that the 80-column models were also marketed as the "CBM 8032", not just under the "PET" name. I was a crazy Commodore hacker back in the early 80's. Mine had 256KB of bank-switched RAM, 640x480 pixel addressable graphics, a Motorola 16-bit 6810 CPU that ran along side the 6502 (how I cross-assembled programs for it I don't remember). I bought an SFD1001 floppy drive for it and hacked the hardware and firmware to support dual floppys. I drove non-CBM printers and modems out the GPIO port. Those were wild times. It's amazing that I got through college with all the time I spent modifying that thing. Thanks for all the work you put into this video series.

[@intergalactic7783]

17:54 LOL, I love this scene. It's very well made and executed! It makes me laugh every time.

[@FordCrownVic1995]

David: Complaints about the pet David's Shirt: I LOVE MY PET

[@richard1113]

The PET will always have a special place in my heart as it was the first microcomputer I ever programmed. It was in high school (we had several 4016 models with cassette drives attached). The most interesting thing I ever did with it was a school project I collaborated with my best friend at the time which was a horse race simulator. It had betting and everything. Was the gem of the PTA meetings. :)

[@chrisyoyo3]

Is it just me, or are your videos just the best

[@dashtesla]

Except for the CRT noise in this video aaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[@simontay4851]

That can't be helped. Watching on my android tablet, I can't hear it anyway as the tiny speakers can't produce that high frequency.

[@FinalBaton]

8-Bit Guy is GOAT

[@hornybastard1839]

It's just you

[@walterkronkitesleftshoe6684]

Commodore PET, the FIRST computer I ever used. Our state comprehensive school in the UK had ONE "40 column" for 1200 pupils. There was a waiting list to book time on it, which although it was meant to be used for our "computer studies" O-level work was invariably used to play a "star trek" game not unlike classic "battleships". A whole lot of memories brought back by this vid. Thanks.

[@johnglielmi6428]

Yeah with Myself being born in 1960, I have used typewriters in my day. I can tell you from expieirance, using a keyboard squared up like the PET, was difficult to get used to. The reason the computers went to the QWERTY layout was because of the thousands of complaints received from consumers, whom were all used to the QWERTY layout on typewriters. Just makes more sense because everyone already knew where the keys were with that layout.

[@ace942]

I remember that when I bought my first car back in 1990, the car dealership was using a Commodore Pet to print out the details. I was surprised that they would have been using such an old computer back then. That floppy disk is huge. I wonder how much it cost compared to the computer.

[@Lofote]

I can't believe that you missed out some very important computers that actually used the 6502. a) The Terminator in T-1 b) Bender and Flexo from Futurama ;)

[@the_pigs_have_rebelled]

Lol

[@superlegendary]

I don't know if you knew this already, but he already showed in another video how Bender uses the 6502. It was in the video titled "The basics of BASIC, the programming language of the 1980s. " at 1:32 in.

[@10MARC]

Great episode! I look forward to catching up on all of these history episodes. My first experience with a pet was in Grade School. My Grade School in about 1977 had one pet computer that used to roll around from class to class on a metal cart and let the classes use for a half hour a day

[@mackamoo]

Love coming back to this channel after over a year. Very nostalgic and I love learning about these historic machines even though I was never around to see them be released.

[@tedvanmatje]

Oh deep joy!! This (and the following videos) has brought on a nostalgic moment where I am nerdgasming with reckless abandon....and a huge bought of procrastination ;) The 8-bit guy - you have saved my weekend! Thanks man!

[@Skraeling1000]

I remember visiting a friend of a friend who had a Pet way back then. Played a few games on it, didn't seem to take long until we realised it was three in the morning and we'd arrived WELL before midnight. This was my first realisation that computers mess with time..

[@coryengel]

Thanks for the vid, David. I just bought a PET from a retired teacher-the last PET in his school’s computer lab that he had salvaged. Coincidentally, this was in Eugene OR, home of the voice synthesis company Covox that you mentioned.

[@AirborneSurfer]

I like my chips with D.I.P. 😎 Another great dive into computing history! I also love the fact that you're going off the beaten path of Apple and Microsoft into the wonderful world of Commodore computers! My very first computer experience was a C64, so I'm excited to see the history of that model!

[@pastorrich7436]

Just found you and enjoy your content! Ah, the memories...back in the days when we had to write our games before we played them. "Alien" was my most popular game in 1979. It was written on the 2001, text only, and based on the movie, and, yes, we were open-source and shared our games. I began my computing journey on the 2001 in junior high. Now I know why one of the machines I used had a tape drive and the other didn't. Watching this series with interest as I really owe it to myself to get my C64 out and mess with it. Cheers!

[@andrewclark8630]

I paused to read it. The green, smooth text on the PET screen was surprisingly pleasing to the eye. I just wanted to thank you for these videos. They have been very interesting and excellently put together. Your reverence for the VIC-20, in particular (it was also my first computer) was most touching as well.

[@ЕвгенийЁлкин-н1щ]

Я не знаю что он сказал

[@smugshrug]

that orb demo was crazy!

[@Ty4ons]

That wave demo especially blew me away. So simple, but seems impossible on a machine that can only display characters.

[@brendanc3318]

Mary had a little lam whos fleece was white as snow. Everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. So this is an example of an entire screen full of text to show what 1 kilobyte of text would look like. It's hard to believe that you could design a decent world processor that could operate on a 4K machine. You certainly wouldn't be doing the works of William Sgajespear! Y the way, I saw the first episode of The Orville last night. SethMcFarlane di dan interesting job with the series; with the first episode wasn't fantastic but I see a lot of potential in it. So I hope it gets better. After all, CBS has rubbed me the wrong way with how they have treated their fans with the whole axanar issue. So I hope the orville can be the show that Star Trek could have been. I'm just rambling on, trying to fill a screen full of text and I'm almost done. I wonder if anyone will pause to read this nonsense?

[@clonkex]

Love me a good world processor...

[@rainrainwebdesign]

viva les geeks

[@TheNerdestOfOne]

Me

[@TonHet1]

/r/copypasta

[@davidrichter9164]

Nice speech.

[@mertarslan8039]

2020: *The 8-Bit Guy* 2063: *The 64-Bit Guy*

[@LukiRudaka]

3000: The Quantum Guy

[@theonlyfairplayer]

4000: The 4K guy

[@martinsindans1341]

2130: The 128-Bit Guy

[@WildDiamond07]

5000: The 8K Guy.

[@vittosphonecollection57289]

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999979865403129999999999999798654031299999999999997986540312 bit guy

[@Drew791]

Your history series are so much better than anything on the History Channel or Discovery Channel. Thank you so so so much for putting out amazing free content that is light years above cable tv!

[@anttimakinen1038]

Great stuff! Stumbled into your channel by accident, and a happy one at that. Still love my (now long gone) C64 and Amiga 500 -- and Commodore nostalgy is, in general, known to make a certain generation a little misty in the eyes. Oh, and while the C64 and A500 are gone, I still have a CBM 8032 with PET 8024 dot matrix printer and a CBM 8050 dual floppy drive. It's pretty much as old as I am, and when my granddad got it, that setup cost more than a new car. This video reminds me that I should power that stuff up any time now. Been at least two years since the last time I test-fired it, and I probably have some floppies somewhere as well. And a Commodore Basic v4.0 manual the size of a phonebook :)

[@illuminocalypse5210]

Damn, that 'Orb' game looks REALLY impressive considering what it's running on! Well done indeed! That's some clever programming there, while working within the PET's profound limitations, even with something like a PET-vet installed on it. That's REALLY damn cool!

[@jasminejohnston6393]

I wasn’t born until 1993, long after Commodore’s heyday and yet this still feels nostalgic

[@Leofwine]

Same. I own (and use!) an Amiga 500 now - two years and counting. The experience is part magical, part frustrating, part natural. If I was left with just that Amiga setup working, I would pretty much be able to do what I'm doing on any modern computer - minus surfing the internet (I'd also need a compatible printer).

[@bsadewitz]

@@Leofwine Well, accessing the internet is everything these days. ;-) I think you'd be significantly better-positioned if you had at least an Amiga 1200, but to each his own.

[@richardpaulhall]

Many people who bought a Commodore PET had learned to type on a manual typewriter! That keyboard would have been strange to them.

[@middle_pickup]

Just wanted to give you some positive feedback on your videos. You do great work making interesting content. I especially like how well you match your audio levels from different takes. Also, your synth tracks rock, man.

[@trevorbrown6654]

I remember we had two of these (PET 2001) at my high school when I started there in the early 80s. Most of us had never used a computer before in those days so it was really interesting. We used to call the keyboard a calculator keyboard although I've subsequently learned the proper term is a 'chiclet' keyboard. There were a handful of games with graphics you could play on them even 40 years ago, 'Blitz' was one and there was also a Blackjack game too. That computer room was always in use, especially by the older kids as the school had a row of Honeywell terminals linked to a mainframe plus an RML 480Z and an RML 380Z. All quite awesome back then

[@officermeowmeowfuzzyface4408]

In early gradeschool (Grade 2) I edited the game, "lemonade stand," on the PET to remove the ABS() call on the purchase inputs so that you could carry negative quantities and achieve ridiculous scores. The principal wanted to expel me for "destruction of property," even though I never actually saved it anywhere! MFW I realized I was being taught by imbeciles.

[@officermeowmeowfuzzyface4408]

I destroyed the contents of dynamic memory. They're just ignorant. This was like, 1983, teachers and principal didn't understand computing. I was about 7 years old; if they actually understood what I did, it would have been a completely different outcome. But fast forward ~15 years, some 13yo indian kid makes a _very_ simple HTML page and he makes the fucking news as a genius. At 13 I was already coding in assembly language, and he needed MARKUP.

[@toddmiller5322]

@@officermeowmeowfuzzyface4408 Same here man. Started with BASIC at 9 (1984), I was programming in assembler at 11 (1986). Set up the computer lab in my middle school because the teachers had no idea what they were doing (1987). Actually taught a computer class in high school because I knew more than the teacher did, she was little more than just a figure head. Made for an easy elective though.

[@Nikku4211]

I started with QBasic at 10 and shortly after, I was programming in Visual Basic .Net. I barely touched assembly, though. That small touch was a little bit of 65c816(6502 based processor) ASM to hack Super Mario World, but only a very little bit.

[@fidgetgamer5556]

I am 13 and I'm still learning c++!

[@niko5008]

@@fidgetgamer5556 im almost 14 and learned lua. I maked a dumb game! :D

[@nrnoble]

Nice video Thanks. Also note that 6202 was used in many arcade games in the 70s and 80s (ie Asteroids, Missile Command, Tempest, and many more). It is impressive what arcade developers could get the 6502 to do with just 16K-32K rom.

[@revvynant9123]

“Calculators are a dead business” Texas Instruments: I think not!!!

[@sierraromeoromeo2444]

TI tried computers and failed, calculators were all they had left.

[@bruh12458]

texas instruments managed to make a gaming calculator

[@hansdietrich83]

Only because the US Government support their monopoly in schools

[@10p6]

Back in the UK in the early 80's, I remember seeing CBM machines in small stores like newsagents (Newspapers, Magazines, games, candy etc) and they often had a cash draw connected to the computer and under the machine. One store owner told me that the machine case was designed by Porsche; how true that is I do not know.

[@jescis]

I'm a Gen X'er from 1977 myself and all these computers and video game system(Atari VCS(2600)) which came out in my birth year!! 😁😁 That scene in "Wayne's World" I knew about and gave a picture of it to a website dedicated to computers in Pop Culture… I don't remember the address for the site but I remember trying to support the project in that manner… 😁😁

[@edcoolidge]

It's interesting to see so many of the odd quirks of the iconic C64 came from the Pet.

[@aaronrowepalmer]

Chuck Peddle died on December 15, 2019... :(

[@Cp-71]

17:44 If anyone is curious, it doesn't work on PET 2001 ;)

[@mikewifak]

I’m starting this series again for like the 10th time. I guess I should say thanks for making this, 8-bit guy. It’s rad.

[@usergonemad]

My school had both 1st and 2nd-gen PETs. Our 2nd-gen green-phosphor "business" PETs had 8K of RAM and big black external Commodore-branded cassette tape drives. Was surprised to see them skipped over in this video, instead going straight to the 4016. Thanks for the reminders of the not-so-great (yet FUN) days of the PET!

[@LucasIsHereYT]

When I get a 3D printer, I want to make a Commodore PET shell to put my computer parts in, it's such a nice looking machine.

[@rationalraven8956]

You may be right that most people buying the PET had no experience with a computer before, but probably many if not most of them would have had experience typing on a typewriter. The QWERTY keyboard has barely changed since 1874, so it was still a strange choice in 1977 considering typewriters had been sold with a standard keyboard for over a hundred years by then already.

[@58jharris]

I was about to type that as well. It looks to me like the keyboard was inspired by a calculator button layout, which of course isn't surprising considering Commodore was already a calculator company.

[@michaelskywalker3089]

Yes, it seems like an adapted calculator layout for typing alphabetic characters plus others. The first thing I noted that was odd was the pi symbol on one of the "function" keys. I think IBM had a standardized layout for their terminal keyboards at that time.

[@Bangbangetc]

my first computer was a pet that space invader game and those sounds brought back tons of memories

[@cliffchism9187]

Finally got around to watching this series and am having a lot of fun reminiscing. While I was watching, I bounced over to ebay to check on prices for the various models of Pets and was astounded to see what they are going for. Back in the day, I found old computers like this and the Vic 20 at flea markets for 5-10 dollars. Times have changed and I really wish I'd held on to my old computer collection from back then. Now, I'm hard pressed to find any of them, anywhere. Great job on the series. On to the next one...

[@MrHamof]

5:35 Typewriters had been around for nearly a century at this point, and generally had a keyboard layout much more like what we'd recognize today.

[@Gouldstrick]

So the KIM-1 is basically the granddaddy of Raspberry Pi? :P

[@cebillon]

No

[@ProlificInvention]

Yes

[@hypnotised-clover]

@@nyccollin What the fuck are you talking about?

[@hypnotised-clover]

@@gopnikaward3986 I know what the mandela effect is, and I think it's bullshit, but he commented something that had absolutely nothing to do with anything here and that profile image is a meme from about 10 years ago...

[@KGB240]

A single board computer popular with hobbyists and engineers - yep, sounds about right

[@tedthrasher9433]

As strange as the original PET keyboard seems today, when I first saw it in my kindergarten classroom, I thought it was the coolest thing ever! Those keys weren’t a bad size for 5 year old fingers, either.

[@benjaminbrady2385]

"That Star Trek could've been" You have declared war, my friend!

[@beachcomberbob3496]

Thanks for the memories! I used to field service CBM machines (way back when it was profitable to do so), especially the sleek, two part SK models. Lots of networked 4032 and 8032 with shared 8050 or 8250 drive units, and we also installed punched tape drives for early CNC applications. Only cheapo customers used the external tape drives, which were more trouble than they were worth, even with VIC-20's and the venerable 64. My CBM64 had a matching single floppy drive (1541), so I was good to go all day.

[@andisadler2897]

excellent documentary from this guy. I started with an old tennis game with 2 paddles wired totv. Then i bought a Atari 2600.Then went upto a Spectrum 16k, then upgraded to Commodore plus 4, then upo the lovely Amiga 500 then 600. Commodore rocked and even sponsored my football team in 92 Chelsea FC.

[@WildDiamond07]

The 8-Bit Guy: *does the killer poke on the Obsolete Geek's pet* The Obsolete Geek: So you have chosen death.

[@dunebasher1971]

No biggie, the Killer POKE wouldn't affect that PET.

[@WildDiamond07]

I like memes, so no one cares, lol.

[@Green-li4mk]

@@WildDiamond07 yes, no one gives a shit about you liking memes.

[@WildDiamond07]

I know. Not even me or my soul.

[@FancyGeeks]

I paused to read your screen of text.

[@amtrak1007]

The very same. TV shows have taught me to read everything on the screen for lil easter eggs.

[@LastChanceSaloonTX]

yup, same here... obviously I have no life

[@jwproductions5070]

same

[@shepd3]

*Shakespeare

[@ttg_jamie6494]

Fancy Teeth same

[@tomwilson2112]

I remember seeing my friend's PET for the first time and falling in love. i don't know why I was so fascinated with the PET, since my VIC-20 and 64 were arguably better computers, but I still wanted one...

[@Robert_Presto]

I love the history of this PC and it's fascinating.!

[@AlexSnedikerJacobsen]

This is still awesome entertainment in 2019. Thanks from Denmark hope this stuff gets stored forever

[@ojonasar]

"17:15" - an exception to this is the Hercules graphics cards that could kill the monitor by setting a very high refresh rate - did it by mistake at Polytechnic.

[@footrotdog]

That keyboard makes perfect sense when you consider that the PET was a first attempt at built a PC from a Calculator company.

[@youtuuba]

footrotdog, yes, and Jack Tramiel gave Chuck Peddle only months to design and produce the PET so that it could be presented at a trade show. I am certain that they knew what a computer keyboard should look like, but they ran out of time, and with the size constraints caused by fitting in a tape drive, the keyboard had to be small, at least initially. AND, Commodore was vertically integrated, so they were set up to make all parts of the PET in house, from ICs to the case. I am sure that their calculator group was tasked with hacking up a small keyboard, just as their office furniture group was tasked with designing and making the sheet metal case.

[@rbrtck]

A calculator company plus a semiconductor company. They just used what was available and therefore expedient. Ironically, Jack Tramiel started his career repairing typewriters. 😄

[@38911bytefree]

MOS Tech was bought by CBM after the Texas Instruments ruined its calculator bussiness. CBM was then convinced that they couldnt depend on third party chips anymore, like it happend with the calculators and the Texas intruments chip. So, after an injection of capitals, they bought MOS and guaranted no only the CPU but any other critical chip will be in house design and production. By mid 80s they even sustitued the mos simple logic chips 74 and 4000 series with MOS parts. The leverage of MOS and the skills of it people were key to success. The 6502 was a "perfected version of the 6800 with more throughput achieved with a deepr pipeline. But one thing the 6502 perfectd best was the price. Motorola asked 125 dollars for a 6800 when it was launched and MOS ... only 25. To list of system which used the 6502 I would add many arcade systems (if you are a regular mame user you already know) run 6502 as main or secondary processor being the Z80 the clear favorite. (this cabinets could fit up to three CPUs). MOS work on the SID and VIC is a legend, a complete project in 9 months, mostly done on PAPER and tested in parts using partial chips. This is REAL "SILICON VALLEY". VIC II chip also break the integration sacel barrier for MOS type of semiconductor. Apple: A computer for a few, CBM: A computer in every home. A PROPER computer that everyone could afford. A shame that it gaming side was the more recognized. Apple did better them, but was sky expensive. Well different bussines models.

[@carlklitzke9455]

38911bytefree You da real MVP

[@38911bytefree]

I wont lie you, I searched the expression on Google LOL. not sure is positive or negative tough. Back in the slow days of internet I used to read a lot about CBM story and even a book has been launched. Is an impressive rush fron one year being owner of the market to the next near bankruptcy. But facts like, beating Motorola (at this market) and TI talks about the power of the company. And the in house design capabilities also a big plus, just imagine other systems using of the shelf Z80, SNxxx for soun (dont recal the part), one copying another. Many micros with similar platform. The C64 was something different in any sense. Call me sort of ... "fanatic". I started using the C64 when only 6 years old, magic times that cant you forget. I bought myself three C64 a couple of years ago, repaired the original one. Get the datasettes working fine and adjusted. So did with the 1541. After all of this years and being an adult, still thrilled by this split second the screen is black when you turn on the C64. Yea, is and old piece of HW, is obsolete in terms of power, but, it like old V8, even when it doesnt make much horse power, you feel moved when you gas it. The story is very interesting and many lessons learned and many errors made as well. It a giant that then fell appart. Sort of McDonell Douglas on its last leg. This stories worth to read IMHO. Sorry for being so long to put and idea, I know it is boring to read this "statements" LOL. Cheers. Edit cant added to a sentence.

[@MrDuncl]

As Jack Tramiel liked to say "Computers for the Masses not the Classes". The UK equivalent was Sinclair and its use of Ferranti ULAs. A working computer using four chips in 1981 for a fraction of the price of a VIC20. Even I could afford one.

[@mos6507]

And MOS Tech's factory eventually became a superfund site :(

[@mmille10]

Nice seeing this. I got into computers in 1981, and found out about computer magazines in 1982. I absolutely *loved* Compute! Magazine! In the early issues, I frequently saw pictures of the PET in the magazine's ads (I guess for software). I never got to use one, since by then, anyone I knew who had a Commodore had a Vic-20, or the then-new C-64. There were a few issues of Compute I saw that had type-ins for the PET, but that died off pretty quickly by the time I got to the magazine. I think Compute dropped the PET by 1984. One Compute game I remember for it had a unique concept. I think it was called "Ski for PET," and it was a skiing game that had a kind of first-person perspective. I remember it had a bar at the bottom of the screen, with two indentations in it that represented where your skis were in the "snow." As you "skied down the hill," you'd see flags for gates "appear in the distance," and grow bigger as you approached them, and you had to position your skis to get through the gates. Whether I'd ever want to use a PET, I agree. It doesn't look like I missed much. I always assumed they were business machines, since that seemed to be how the ads marketing products for it were positioned. A bit of trivia. Some years back, I learned that the computer's name was an acronym for Personal Electronic Transactor.

[@0deer0se]

Loving your videos. The extent to which you play around with stuff like wiring in different chips - Fantastic! You have an awesome collection

[@videooblivion]

For a thorough history of the PET, and Commodore in general, I recommend Brian Bagnall's series of books.

[@paulschmidt7473]

One of the coolest things you could do was tell the disk drive to send a file, and the matching printer to receive the file, with the PET not even involved....

[@Wizardofgosz]

Not fun???!! I can't tell you how many hours of fun I've had with a PET! Also, you didn't say what PET stands for: Personal Electronic Transactor.

[@ouethojlkjn]

@John Ross I have an original late seventies PET flyer and can confirm it is Transactor. At least in the UK.

[@ouethojlkjn]

@referral madness Transactor means something that undertakes "Transactions". A transaction is a business term for buying and selling, an agreement between two parties which is then enacted. I think Terminal would have possibly made better sense but maybe it was avoided because there were already (dumb) terminals in the computer world and Commodore maybe didn't want their machine confused with one of these. The word transactor may have been more attractive to the business community of the day.

[@82garrou]

thank you @The 8-Bit Guy i now finally know what flopppy drive i used to use with my C64-c when i was a child, the old Pet one!

[@richardkelsch3640]

I can understand the keyboard. When a calculator company makes their first computer, they use what they already know how to do, and make a calculator style keyboard. It made it cheaper to make using existing supplies. Then they had the KIM-1 basic design to work off of. I find it was actually a smart thing to do. They got a lot of bang for the buck.

[@Squirmish89]

I got your introduction stuck in my head for an entire day

[@BigDrippins]

Adrian Cain morning dew by Anders Enger Jenson

[@kratomkingdomallyouwannakn8188]

I'm curious to know your background? you program and repair hardware. were you educated in IT?

[@FLUFFSQUEAKER]

He worked in IT support or something similar

[@chrisirving868]

@@FLUFFSQUEAKER thx

[@kaitek666]

check his latest video :) he pretty much answers your question

[@GCurl]

What type of pet food do you feed these PETs?

[@unknownone61]

Bytes

[@CanalRadioMax]

They don't feed, only needs BASIC cares.

[@xalataf3365]

GermanCurl BASIC PET food. Although I don't recommend it as now the keyboard is horrendously small.

[@Dorelaxen]

You feed 'em chips. DUH!

[@jasonmurawski126]

Volts

[@MarkDyck]

The aesthetics though. I absolutely love how they look to this day. Wrote my first programs on a Pet in high school in 1982. Although by the time we could afford our own computers it was Vic 20 or Atari time. :)

[@glikar1]

Fun video, brings back the days when I hacked my 4016 40 column display to 80 column. Still have the Pet with dual drive including the board schematics and a IEEE interface board. I even saved the memory dumps I used to modify the display code for 80 columns. Beautiful thing about the 6502 is that I could read the machine code without a disassembler. The 6502 instruction set is elegant and simple.

[@AllGamingStarred]

Mom: "Let's go to the pet store" Son: "We have a pet at home" PET:

[@tomhambain9270]

You should do a episode on a Epson computer!

[@bobbytables464]

Yes, I paused. Also, I loved The Orville. Felt like Trek in a way nothing has since the 90s.

[@tomsnyder5431]

i need to correct some of the info on the original pet computer. i designed the original pet for a company contracted to commodore called "com log co.". we were based in phoenix,az run by larry hittel who had worked at general electric with chuck peddle as an engineer. i designed the original package working with a pc designer at the office. i was responsible for the final design and had traveled to toronto, can to hand over the design plans to "norco" who built a sheet metal mockup. we also contracted jody numbers, a product designer who made a plastic complete design mockup with a monitor bezel, etc.in scottsdale,az. all the original design was done by com log co. during the spring/summer of 1977.

[@tricosteryl]

Ahhhh ! Great thanks for this one ! I started with a CBM 3016 (16 kb) at School. Yeahhhh so many intense moments :)

[@claudiolluberes111]

That demo looks great! Does it need more than 4K of RAM? Btw great video I hope you upload the other parts soon!

[@Dukefazon]

And don't leave out the best of the Commodore family, the Amiga 500! Sorry, yeah, I'm the guy who's gonna bester you about the Amiga while this Commodore series lasts :)

[@The8BitGuy]

I'll probably finish it up with the A1000 and 500.. unfortunately I don't have a 2000 to show.

[@Trusteft]

Oh, what about a A1200? A superb machine. I used to own one up to 94. :(

[@sprybug]

Yeah, I had an Amiga 500, 1000, 1200, and 600 at one time. I even had highly modded A500 at one point too. Those things were very impressive beasts and beat the pants off of any PC when they came out. Too bad Commodore's marketing at that time was god awful. They could have been the new standard easily.

[@vytah]

The first and foremost competitor for Amiga wasn't PC, but Macintosh (there was also Atari ST, but it was less popular than those two). They were both 68k systems, they were controlled by single companies, they focused on providing superior graphical and sound experience compared to PCs. They were go-to choices for people doing more "artsy" stuff, like publishing, graphics, video editing, music etc. Furthermore, both Apple and Commodore weren't doing well in the early 90s, Commodore didn't survive, Apple did and now they're doing better than ever. Imagine holy wars between Android and amigaPhone.

[@SpearM3064]

It isn't surprising that the Atari ST was less popular. It certainly didn't help Atari's case that the original version of BASIC that shipped with the ST was so buggy. For example, try typing X=18.9. On an Atari ST running ST Basic, you get this: function not yet done System error #%N, please restart And other commands like X=39.8 or X=4.725 would crash the computer! When MetaComCo announced they were "one bug away" from releasing a new version, industry wags jokingly wondered "whether Atari has only one more bug to eliminate from ST BASIC or one more to add". So, like I said, a buggy implementation of BASIC certainly did not help the ST's reputation. And +sprybug is correct: What really killed the Amiga was Commodore's marketing. For example, the only magazine that they advertised the Amiga in was Commodore Magazine (their in-house magazine), *which they cancelled* on the grounds that "we're a computer company, not a magazine company". The only television advertisements for the Amiga that I ever saw were made by a local firm named VidCom (who was also the only Amiga retailer within 80 kilometers.)

[@paincreatesfame]

Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow. Everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go. So this is an example of what an entire screen full of text would look like. It's hard to believe that you could design a decent word processor that could operate on a 4K machine. You certainly wouldn't be doing the works of William Shakespeare! By the way, I saw the first episode of The Orville last night. Seth McFarlane did an interesting job with the series; the first episode wasn't fantastic but I see a lot of potential in it. So I hope it gets better. After all, CBS has rubbed me the wrong way with how they have treated their fans with the whole Axanar issue. So I hope The Orville can be the show that Star Trek could have been. I'm just rambling on, trying to fill a screen full of text and I'm almost done. I wonder if anyone will pause to read this nonsense? ... yes. _I will pause to read "this nonsense."_ And take the time to type the whole thing up so that it's easier for some people to read. It's just interesting to see people ramble on to me, I like seeing what they can come up with!

[@ProGamer1515]

Sadie Blackwell "By" needs to be "Y" He made a typo

[@jeffmasnaghetti4472]

Keep in mind that, at the time the PET was released, there was no such thing as an affordable printer, so word processing was unimportant. My first printer was an Epson MX-80 in the early 80's that cost a TON of money, but it changed my computing goals.

[@zahidahmed586]

I was gonna go to type this up myself, but since I remembered taht comments are WIERD, so I searched for what started with "Mary had a little lamb"

[@TheSulross]

8-Bit Guy, I'm particularly fascinated at the graphics demo mode and the skilled games that use text mode but appear like they might be bit-mapped graphics. It seems that text mode software is enjoying a bit of resurgence amongst the IT culture. We're all the time connecting to VMs and Docker containers to where it's far more expedient to do that over a lowly SSH connection running in text mode (instead of some whacky X-Windows GUI mode). Hence the vi text editor is doing better today than ever - it is a must-have skill set to use command line bash shell and vi text editor. But it's not stopping there. We need to setup dashboards show metrics on stuff running in this vast ocean of disembodied Docker containers and once again, text mode displays of vital info are making a come back. People are wanting a lean and mean display that doesn't have the clutter, unnecessary glitz of typical web page output - and above all we want them to be fast to start and not eat up whopping megabytes (even gigabytes) of memory on our computers just to run monitoring software. Heck there are even new web browsers appearing that are sporting a more advanced way to run and view web pages in text mode - their great for stripping out the crap that most web pages are load with and just showing the text that is of interest. But they even have ways of displaying rudimentary images that are recognizable vis-a-vis the full bitmap image. Seems like every thing in computing eventually cycles back around - though it may take a few decades to happen.

[@MathieuLLF]

This series is amazing! Thank you for making this