#Commodore PET/CBM

[mingos-commodoreblog]

Commodore PET online Emulator

[commodorez]

While this was manufactured in the United States, it was not sold there. Note the 220V 50Hz power specifications. The major giveaway is the name "CBM 3032 which was only used in Europe.

The CBM 3032 was known as the PET-2001-32N within the US market. The CBM/PET distinction faded away in the US with the 4000 and 8000 series.

Commodore CBM 3032 (US, 1979)

[commodorez]

I still believe the craziest form of computer program storage format from the 1980s is the cassette tape. Logical I get it but to store entire programs on little tape (that I only remember using to play music) is just crazy to me. Idk

Agreed, cassette tape for data storage was really clever. The concept had its heyday was the 1970s in a wide variety of encoding schemes for different computer platforms. It did persist into the 80s, mostly in Europe, while the US switched to floppy disks as soon as they were available for systems. The majority of my Ohio Scientific software is on cassette.

Talking with UK vs. US Commodore 64 users in particular will highlight the disparity in which storage mediums that were commonplace. I've got a few pieces of software on tape for mainly the VIC-20, but I rarely bother to use it, because it's slow and annoying. To be fair, Commodore's implementation of data storage on tape is pretty rock solid relative to the competition. It's considered more reliable than other company's but Chuck Peddle's implementation of the cassette routines are considered quite enigmatic to this day. He didn't document it super well, so CBM kept reusing his old code from the PET all the way through the end of the C128's development 7 years later because they didn't want to break any backward compatibility.

The big thing that really made alot of homebrewers and kit computer owners cozy up to the idea was the introduction of the Kansas City Standard from 1976. The idea of getting away from delicate and slow paper tape, and moving towards an inexpensive, portable, and more durable storage medium was quite enticing. Floppy disk drives and interfaces were expensive at the time, so something more accessible like off the shelf audio tapes made sense.

I've linked two places you can read about it from Byte Magazine's February 1976 issue below (check the attribution links).

You might recognize a familiar name present...

There are a few ways to encode binary data on tape designed to handle analog audio, but the KCS approach is to have 1's be 8 cycles of 2400Hz tone, and 0's be 4 cycles of 1200Hz tone. I say cycles, because while 300 baud is the initial specification, there is also a 1200 baud specification available, so the duration of marks vs spaces (another way of saying 1's and 0's), is variable based on that baud rate. Many S-100 computers implemented it, as do a few contemporary proprietary designs.

The big 3 microcomputers of 1977 that revolutionized the industry (Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and Tandy TRS-80 Model I) each have their own cassette interface implementation. It kept costs down, and it was easy to implement, all things considered. The Apple II and TRS-80 use off-the-shelf cassette deck connections like many other machines, whereas the original variant of the PET had an integrated cassette. Commodore later used external cassette decks with a proprietary connector, whereas many other companies abandoned tape before too long. Hell, even the original IBM PC has a cassette port, not that anybody bothered to use that. Each one used a different encoding format to store their data, rather than KCS.

Here's a sample of what an OSI-formatted tape sounds like.

And here's a Commodore formatted tape, specifically one with VIC-20 programs on it.

I won't subject you to the whole program, or we'd be here all day. The initial single tone that starts the segment is called the "leader", I've truncated it for the sake of your ears, as well as recorded them kinda quietly. I don't have any other tape formats on hand to demonstrate, but I think you get the idea.

You can do alot better than storing programs on tape, but you can also do alot worse -- it beats having to type in a program every time from scratch.

[astrobiologistdale]

My First Experience With A Computer

This is the very, first, thing I ever typed onto/into a computer. It was a CBM (Commodore Business Machines), PET 2001 Series, in the Optical Lab at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, back, in 1979. I’ll never forget those words. I had no idea if the computer would even respond. Shakily, I typed in, “HELLO”. Nothing happened. Then, I realized it had an ENTER (RETURN), key and I pressed…

[chris-in-eugene]

First picture is the Commodore Business Machine (CBM), model 2001 from which was introduced in 1978. This was a restyling and renaming of the Personal Electronic Transactor (PET). The rename was in part to get around a trademark in Europe. Also, the PET name was just calling it a "pet computer" but was converted to an acronym to try and be a little more business-friendly.

The second picture is of the Amstrad PPC640 portable computer, sitting on a tower rebranded as an Amstrad PPC640, but not actually a part of that portable computer line.

Third image is a circa 2004 eMachines T2341 next to a Compaq LTE 5000 series laptop and dock enclosure. Specifically the LTE 5400 model, which was released in late 1996. There is another laptop on top of it, which appears to be another Compaq, but if it is, it would be from the mid-90s given the placement of what looks like the Compaq logo on the top. The picture appears to be around 2019, being that the screen shows compiling libmutter, and specifically libwacom-1.0, which was released in 2019, and quickly updated not too long after.

The fourth image is just a box for the Atari 130XE, released in 1985.

The fifth, and final, image shows the IBM Personal Computer 300GL from 2000, next to a generic 6-bay tower (5 1/4" drive bays that is). The tower is interesting, because in the 3 1/2" drive bays, the top one is a standard 3 1/2 floppy drive, but the bottom one is a ZIP drive. The CD-ROM drive appears to be the Creative Labs MK4106 48x drive, which was released around 1998/1999, which is the same release years for the ZIP drive.

[game-history]

Star Trek game review 1971 - Commodore PET/CBM

[humor-y-videojuegos]

Voodoo Castle Año: 1978 Plataformas: Apple II, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Atari 8-bit, VIC-20, TI-99/4A, Commodore PET/CBM, TRS-80...

[contac]

[gaminggrandma73]

The Commodore Pet/CBM 2001 series

The Commodore Pet/CBM 2001 Series computers was the computers we had in elementary school in Cayuga, Ontario. Canada. I was in grade 2 in 1981 (8 years old) is the last memory of using it. I most likely used them in earlier grades but I don't remember. They only has educational games of course. At home we bought the Commodore Vic 20 but that will be another post.

[writing-system]

PET/CBM Character Sets (french) Commodore ROM

Source

[mingos-commodoreblog]

Commodore Emulator VICE v3.9 released

[monochrome-monitor]

Commodore CBM PET 8032 and 8050 Floppy

[hydralisk98]

Dump

(_DEFINE) CATEGORIES: Health, Relationships, Possessions, Skills, Identity, Powers, Lifestyle. [...] uncategorized generic LIST ITEMS: electronics, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, pronouns, family, friends, classmates, coworkers, books, games, movies, stationary supplies, school, work, memory, arts, music, wardrobe, languages, knowledge, country, ethnicity, appearance, body, metabolism, height, weight, names, age, birthplace, favs, handwriting, dislikes/pet peeves, pet(s), tech, hobbies, accessories, home, crush/boyfriend/girlfriend, best friend, authorities, grades, vocabulary, introspection, research skills, reading, writing skills, creative expression, freedom of expression, freedom of use, shapeshift, time travel, teleporation, omni-communication, leadership, organization, wealth, development skills, design skills, data, storage, source code access, information access, forgotten / lost goods, access to magical services, religion, beliefs, reputation, relations with supernatural entities, telekinesis, clairvoyance, retro-cognition, strenght, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, past lives' memories, scripting/coding skills, basic computing skills, mathematical skills, tribe, energy, laws, youth, lifespan, aesthetic style, side projects. [...]

(?) KLARA list items= Female, bisexual, cisgender, she/her, vintage electronics passion and expertise, somewhat middle-class Assyrian family in Quebec, a dozen of pretty close friends, best friend and boyfriend in her appartment, studying in Maisonneuve Cegep in Montreal in first year of Multimedia Integration Technique, working in a electronics' shop as a warehouse/factory worker and sometimes as a cashier, loves to write into zines and taking notes on paper, authorities are really respectful kind and tolerant with her, several non-fiction books and manuals in her bookcase, a couple of retro video games and a few simple tabletop games excluding her TTRPGs, between 12 and 24 different documentary and entertainment movies to watch on a quite average sized CRT television, several artistic and serious work supplies in her very own huge custom backpack which also has a few keychain collectibles and stickers on, photographic memory, great animation artist and blogger that she has just started up this month, classic metal and old patriotic songs music enthusiast, vaporwave plus vintage aesthetic wardrobe with a few minimalist and DIY clothes alongside the elegant ones, some traditional Assyrian dresses and accessories as well, speaks French English Neo-Aramaic and German fluently, curiosity drives her to research everyday so yes she knows hell of a lot about a handful of topics online, living in southern Lanaudiere in Canada, Assyrian-Canadian ancestry and heritage as Klara Ashur, jet black short hair olive green eyes tan skin mesomorph, 5'6", 130-140lb, 20 years old, August 1st 1998, somewhere around or within the Greater Montreal region, autistic and INTP personality, Leo astrology sign, moderately salty food, quite irreligious and kind-hearted parents, winter season, classical-style high quality handwriting, dislikes fear and dishonest people, "macro" the two years old black female shy but affectionate turkish angora cat born on May 20th 2016, geek and nerdy plushie collection, DSi, iPod Shuffle, iPhone 11, P52 laptop, really great i5 desktop computer, fancy drawing tablet, gamer girl headphones and ear buds, volunteering at local tech museum for restoring and maintaining old computer systems, quite active and reactive friendly tribe / group / fandom, earmuffs glasses scarf student-cap gauntlets gloves headphones?, really big low-cost high-quality service appartment shared with her boyfriend and her BFF, Constant is a quiet but dedicated boyfriend who take care of Klara's emotions and listens to her extensively but within reason, Arya is a charming woman friend who loves to iterate on ideas and do projects with Klara when she is somewhat free onto weekends, very rich vocabulary but especially in German and English, all authorities of Klara deeply respects her at the point of staying alongside her at most times, she always had quite great / awesome grades in all of her studies, she is a expert of research and dedicates some time everyday to both researching topics and doing some meditation & gratitude journaling, great writing skills that awaits clever use in her projects and further grades, she expresses her emotions into her art especially animations and indie game demo development, no censorship or restriction over her thoughts or any content from her that doesn't hurt directly anyone, Klara is free from all forms of controversy, she can shapeshift and astrally project herself into a Serperior Naga form or anything she wishes at any given moment, when she is time travelling her existence and mindset is always guaranteed to exist no matter what she does and where she does so in the timelines, she can teleport between dimensions and on every space position as well while still being safe from any evil elements from anything really, she can always manage to communicate with whatever she wants to communicate with, her guardian angel come to speak with her once every month so I feel good to confess and iterate calmly every little while, she is a excellent leader and ruler over people and is able to execute the best justice there is without any doubts, she is quite well organized, she can manifest as much money as she feels like she wants without any form of debt, she has unlimited bandwith on all devices as well as unlimited data storage, she owns much physical storage space where she usually keeps her unused technological systems, she always finds what she seeks and quickly even if it was lost or forgotten, she has access to all possible source code and primary source evidence information, Klara is extremely grateful of everything she has that is positive or constructive, she can access magic and magical services with ease, she heals from all forms of injury real quick, she has a lifespan of at least six hundred years and the whole universe is totally chill with that, several side projects and opportunities towards greatness, photogenic, vlog, shopping hauls, recording many major and minor history events, priviledge to speak with several historical figures, (vintage computer systems: PDP-15, PDP-12, PDP-11/60, PDP-8/E, Xerox Daybreak, PLATO V terminal, SDS Sigma 6, IBM /360 model 25, IBM 650, Commodore Amiga 3000, Commodore CBM-II, Commodore 128D, SEGA Genesis, SEGA Dreamcast, NeXTCUBE, VAXmate, DECmate III+, VT-180, Robotron K 1840, DCPU-16, HP-85B, HP-86B, Intellec 40, Teletypes, Typewriters, Peipherals, VT-300, Symbolics 3650 Lisp Machine, DEC Rainbow 100, Warsaw Pact "micro" computers, Micro-80 kit computer of 1983 Soviet Union, household mainframe computer of the future, Portal 2's vintage computer systems, Altair 8800B, S-100 computers, ), (games: Half-Life 1, Quake, Quake II, Half Life 2, Portal 2, Civilization 5 Complete, Europa Universalis IV, Baba is You, Crazy Taxi, and eleven games which are unique to my timeline at the very minimum), (movies: much fascinating documentaries and fiction movies tailored to my tastes and that most are unique to my timeline), (people: []), (Q&A Klara Ashur), (software with src code and legit key gens: Windows 3.1, NeXTSTEP, Linux Mint Cinnamon 19.2, CP/M, MP/M, Z-machine internals, magical operating system tailored to my exact needs across dimensions, OS/12, OS/8, RSX-11M, Inferno OS, Unix V5-V7, Wolfenstein TNO's Nazi Germany computer operating system, several weird OSes from many timelines, Hypno-OS from MerchantSoft, FreeBSD, Xerox Pilot OS, OS/8, OS/12, .);

[koney-scanlines]

Priority cONTRoL SYsTem fOR CoMmoDORe cOMputeRs

Developed in Germany by Johann F. Beurer, which allows the sharing of disks between different Commodore PETs both 3000-4000-8000 series and 600-700-8200 CBM II series.

[msbarrows]

Space Invaders - first video game i played (and played a lot of) on a CBM PET.

Frogger - first game we got on our first home PC (Commodore 64)

Centipede - first cartridge game we got for that same C64

Moon Patrol - another one for the C64. Sidescroller of a moon buggy. The MIDI music for it still occasionally earworms me all these years later.

Ultima - one of the early ports to C64, I have no clue which one. We played it obsessively, it was so much better than Zork because, look! Graphics!

Most of the really cool early games I played only came around once I was in my 20s and had purchased my first PC for myself. Stuff like Populous, the first Sim City, California Games, Sim Earth, Quake, Myst, and so forth.