The Calculator Market: A Turning Point for Commodore

In 1975, Commodore Business Machines had been successfully designing and selling calculators for half a decade. However, the company faced an unexpected challenge when Texas Instruments, the provider of the chips that powered Commodore's calculators, increased the price of these chips to exorbitant levels. This sudden increase forced Commodore and other companies out of competition practically overnight.

As a result, MOS Technology, another company heavily invested in the calculator market at the time, was developing a promising new CPU to compete with the Motorola 6800. Chuck Peddle, a key figure at MOS Technology, was instrumental in shaping the company's direction. Peddle could see that the calculator market was becoming increasingly saturated and that a new player needed to enter the fray. However, he also observed that the hobbyist personal computer market was looking incredibly promising.

The introduction of the 6502 CPU by Mos Technology marked a significant turning point for Commodore. The processor's capabilities were perfectly suited for the development of a personal computer, and it first appeared in the KIM-1, a single-board personal computer designed by Peddle and manufactured by MOS Technology in 1976.

Commodore was particularly drawn to the 6502 CPU after witnessing an early demonstration of Steve Wozniak's Apple II in 1976. Recognizing the potential of this processor for their own purposes, Commodore decided to purchase MOS outright to ensure that they had their own chip manufacturer. This strategic move allowed Commodore to maintain control over the production and distribution of the 6502 CPU.

Following their acquisition of MOS Technology, Commodore gave the green light to Peddle and his team to work immediately on a 6502-based computer. Set to debut in just six months at the 1977 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, this new product was ambitious, yet driven by the company's vision for the future.

The resulting computer, which would later be known as the PET 2001, was an unconventional design that sparked curiosity among potential buyers. Initially manufactured with a chassis made of wood and using a black-and-white TV from a local hardware store as its display, the device was put together in record time by Chuck Peddle just hours before the show.

The PET 2001's production version finally arrived at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, and it gained significant attention among attendees. Its initial price point of $495 meant that this computer was positioned as a more affordable alternative to other personal computers on the market.

Despite some initial awkwardness with its calculator-inspired keyboard and 9-inch display, the PET 2001 went on to become a notable success for Commodore. In terms of sales, it battled fiercely against the Radio Shack TRS-80 and Steve Jobs' Apple II, capturing substantial portions of both the education and business markets during the remainder of the 1970s.

However, with increasing competition from other products in the market, such as their own VIC-20 model, Commodore's PET continued to evolve. A new series, known as the PET 4000, soon emerged, featuring a more refined design, including a proper keyboard and a larger 12-inch display screen. This move allowed Commodore to solidify its position within the burgeoning market.

Interestingly, it is worth noting that in Europe, these models used different specifications than those deployed in North America. These subtle variations highlight how regional markets often present unique challenges for manufacturers as they strive to meet diverse consumer needs.

As a product line, the PET 2001 series continued to undergo revisions and improvements over the years. Nonetheless, it played an important role in establishing Commodore's presence within the burgeoning personal computer market of the late 1970s.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enThe year is 1975and Commodore Business Machineshad been successfully designingand selling calculators for half a decade.But there was a problem:Texas Instruments, who provided the chipsthat powered Commodore's calculatorswanted in on that hot mathematical action.So they increased the price of the chipsto exorbitant levels, which meantthat Commodore and other companies wereforced out of competition practically overnight.Meanwhile, MOS Technology,another company heavily investedin the calculator market at the time,was developing a promising new CPUto compete with the Motorola 6800.Chuck Peddle, in particular, was keyto the company's current direction,and he could see the writing was onthe wall for the calculator market.However, the hobbyist personal computermarket was looking hugely promising,and the new MOS CPU was perfect for the task.Dubbed the 6502, this processorwas first used in the KIM-1,a single-board personal computer designed by Peddleand manufactured by MOS Technology in 1976.This got Commodore's attention,and wanting to avoid anotherTI fiasco, bought MOS outrightto make sure that they had their own chip manufacturer.And after seeing an early demonstrationof Steve Wozniak's Apple II in 1976,Commodore and MOS decided to take action.Jack Tramiel, the founder and head of Commodore,gave the green light to Peddle and his teamto work immediately on a 6502-based computer,set to debut in just six months at the1977 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago.It had a chassis made of woodand its display was a black-and-whiteTV from a local hardware store,and Chuck Peddle only got itworking just hours before the show.Nonetheless, it struck a cord with potential buyerswith the production version finalized as the PET 2001,going on sale in October of 1977at an initial price of $495.It went on to be a notable success for Commodore,fighting neck on neck against theRadio Shack TRS-80 and the Apple II,and winning over significant portionsof the education and business marketsthroughout the remainder of the 1970s,before being eclipsed in sales by their own VIC-20.As the competition gained increasing market share,the PET continued to evolvewith a multitude of revisions.The original PET 2001 series with itsawkward calculator-inspired keyboardand 9-inch display was soonsupplanted by the PET 4000 series,featuring a 12-inch display and a proper keyboard.Note that in Europe, these never used the \"PET\"moniker because of an existing trademark by Philips,so there, they instead went under the name CBM, standing for Commodore Business Machines.The CBM name was eventually used in theUS as well, with things like the 8000 series,which upgraded the old 40-column textdisplay to a more modern 80-column display.There were also some unique machineslike the cleverly named Teachers' PET,which Commodore donated to schools in orderto gain a foothold in the education market,and the SuperPET 9000,sounding like something straight out of Buck Rogers,featuring a coprocessor and 96KB of RAM.Also of note are the later PET-basedmachines like the CBM 8096,featuring a less angular, rounded case designsimilar to Commodore's CBM 2 computers,which are another thing entirely.For the rest of this video, we'll be lookingat the CBM 8032 model from 1981,which I got in 2012 for the price of $79.A pretty good deal at the time,but nowadays that would be an absolute steal!Expect to pay at least twice thatfor one that doesn't even work,anywhere from $250 to $400 for one that does,and well beyond that for one of the earliermodels or those outside of the US.Now let's go ahead and get this out of the way:this is a computer for more serious collectors,and because of its immense historic value,it's highly sought after.Commodore is a company that waslegendary for its ruthless rise to powerand its pathetic self-implosion.And seeing as this was its first computer,it's no wonder that its prices just keep going up.Not only that, but the look of thesethings is astonishing, even today.It looks wonderfully retro and yetwildly futuristic at the same time.That cream-on-black color scheme.Those hard angles and subtle bevels.The proportion of the display to the main chassis–Mmm... yes!Plus the fact that it's built using thick sheet metal.None of that injection molded plastic fluff,which also means the thing weighs a hefty 40 pounds.This sturdy, all-in-one case design was a bigselling point for the computer back when it launched,since its main competitors,the Apple II and TRS-80 Model I,both required an external display.Not so with the PET,making it feel more like an appliancedesigned with clear purposerather than just a box that you connect to your TV.In fact, depending on who you ask,this is the first true personalcomputer for the mainstream,especially the PET 2001with its built-in cassette drive.Even the name, \"PET,\"invokes a friendly nature,and invited comparisons to thepet rock fad of the late-1970s,although officially it was an acronym thatstood for Personal Electronic Transactor,a far more business-like and stuffy name indeed.But even with all this in its favor,the number of things you could actually dowith its monochrome text display was limited.This version features a 12-inch green phosphor displaycapable of showing up to 80 columns of text at once,which met the basic requirements for doingany serious work with spreadsheets and documents.But the video address generatorit uses only outputs textand built-in hardware charactersfrom the PETSCII character ROM,and couldn't generate graphics like, say, the Apple II.However, this wasn't exactly meant for the home userso much as it was for businesses and education,which makes sense when you look at this keyboard.Gone are the tiny chiclet keys from the earlier models.In is this full travel keyboard,much like what you'd find on thelater Commodore VIC-20 and 64.And due to the metal case designand key press mechanisms,it sounds thunderous and chunky to type on,which I can't help but love.There's more to love around back, too,with edge connectors for hooking indata cassette decks, parallel printersand general purpose IEEE-488-compatible devices.Getting inside the case is another oneof my favorite things about the PET.All you do is simply lift the frontof the case below the keyboardand pop the hood, so to speak,letting you get to all its naughtybits with no screws required.You've got 32KB of RAM in this model,alongside a 20KB ROM, including the CBM KERNAL,character set and BASIC version 4.0.There's also the MOS 6545 video chip,outputting either a 40x25 or 80x25character monochrome display,as well as single Piezo Beeperfor single-voice square wave sound output.And of course, at the heart of the machinebeats an MOS 6502 CPU running at 1MHz,although you'll notice that mine isn'tplugged into the motherboard itself.Mine is plugged into a PETVet,a custom-made board designed and sold by bitfixer,which replaces both the RAMand the ROM of the machine.When I got this 8032, the RAM had gone bad.And since I also wanted the ability to run custom ROMsand have an overall more reliable machine,the PETVet was the perfect option for me.There's also one seriously menacing power supply,a technological beast that scares me intoa fetal position every time I dare look at it.Loading software into the PETcan be accomplished in a few ways.First is typing in a program yourself,but that's slow and takesmore time than I have anymore.Second is using a Commodore tape drivelike one of these earlier models here,or you could even use the later ones thatwere made for the VIC-20 and the 64.Third is by use of floppy disks,although this wasn't as common,and requires something like the 8050dual floppy drive, which I've never owned.There's also a fourth option nowadayswith things like the PETdisk, also by bitfixer,which allows you to use micro SD cardsto load files through a boot loader.Now, this is normally the part of the video whereI talk about games and show some boxes but,well, this was never a gamer's machine.However, people still wrote hundreds of games for it,making clever use of the limited graphicsthat resulted in stuff like this:Finally, if you don't wanna go through the copious costand customization to get a working PET system,emulation is an ever-present optionfor the curious and the enthusiast alike.VICE and MESS are the two major options,though I would highly recommendVICE for its ease of useand more focused optionsregarding Commodore machines.So that is the Commodore PET,or at least the 8032 version,although most of them are gonnabe the same basic experience.Although with this one,it does have some other issues that I didn't touch on,which I probably should have and I will now.That a lot of the programs thatI showed won't run on it because it'sgot a different display and someother features that aren't compatiblewith the 4000 series and further back, soyou're gonna have to do a little bit oftinkering to get those things to work.With that said, I mean why in the world am Iinterested in this? Or why would anybody?I mean it's hard to find,it's expensive when you do find it,it barely does anything worthwhile,and yet I can't help but friggin' love this thing.I seriously just adore this computer.I love the way it feelsand the way it looks andsounds, the green screen monitor, justeverything about it is awesome!I love this thing! It's really cool!It just doesn't do much.And I don't use it very much either, butI do like the fact thatwhen you do finally get one,you can make it work a little betterwith things like the PETVet and the PETdiskand those things are incredibly usefulfor just ease of use, but...You know, what are you gonna do with it otherwise?Other than just kind of treat it as a piece of art andthat's what I like to do.I really just do adore this thingand it sparks conversationanytime anybody sees it.They're like, Whoa, that lookslike something out of \"2001,\"And yes, yes it does.The movie, not the year.Uh...Anyway.Well, that is all for this particular hardware review.If you enjoyed this video on the Commodore PET,then perhaps you would like totake a look at some of my others.I reviewed the MSX2 recently,and I've reviewed other Commodore machinesin the past, and there's gonna be some morein the future, of course.As well as ton of other videos on a tonof other subjects, retro and otherwise,so subscribing or just looking through mychannel is recommended if you liked this.There's also Twitter and Facebook,which I feel compelled to mentionsince there are icons here in the annotations,as well as Patreon, which really helps out.So if you *really* like the show,then *really* do consider it, please.It'll also get you some extra perks like beingable to see videos earlier than anywhere else.And as always, thank you very much for watching.\n"