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Personal Electronic Transactor
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 03:38:19 +0000 UTCOnce again, after 43 years, the Commodore PET Model 4016 graces the dining room table of my childhood home! When all hope seemed lost, this happened to come up for sale, and, although it was a significant distance away, it had a reasonable price. Any collector will be familiar with the 'travel distance' factor of the game. I quickly put a deposit on it to show I was serious. There would be a delay in getting the PET because the seller had to pick it up from his mother’s place and she lived far away from him as well. Turns out his mother lives near me! ("boyyer" sound) Once we realized that, he could deliver right to my house (for $25). He also had a number of commodore tape drives, so I got one of those for another $25. This one with the ground wire that so often gets snipped by VIC20 and Commodore 64 users.
First thing, the PET works. That’s great, because If it fails, it is not the easiest to repair. I never opened the computer back in the day. I’m sure they had the school machines bolted shut. You simply lift under the keyboard side and the whole top opens. Engage the kickstand and you have full access to the internals. It is a simple yet effective design for an all-in-one computer. Actually, not unlike the Power Macintosh G3/G4 tower 'door'. A large board and power supply inside, but there is still room to keep a sandwich in there. I closed it back up, flipped the switch in the back and heard that bizarre start-up sound I had long forgotten about.
The kickstand works remarkably well
The PET/CBM models had a large textured model sticker under the screen. Unfortunately the corners were picked away by a bored student at some point in the past. I know it's something that could be professionally reprinted, but maybe I'll just fill in the missing space with marker to restore the sharp corner aesthetic of the rest of the machine.
I typed a little BASIC to make it do something, but I'd like to get some actual programs loaded, and, of course, a modern flash drive adapter exists.
It has the 12" screen, not the tiny 9" of earlier models.
Obviously, I am quite happy about this acquisition and will make sure it is shoe-horned into the next video. Again, thanks to you all for making this possible.
We've long since lost the ability to easily type playing card suits
P.S. This video by Chuck Hutchins gives a remarkably detailed model history of the PET computers that he has. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBlp1AAHf7A
P.P.S. Now if you are a serious PET collector with $1500 to spend, the rare PET 8296 is also available with the new rounded design.
Comments
The Virtual Nomad
"You can't have a computer for a pet, but you can have a PET for a computer."
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Thanks very much! It's pretty amazing that it happened. And that's a great analogy to a car hood. My car hood still works like that. What are these "gas shocks" you speak of? ;)
iiiDIY
Congrats on the acquisition! That service access reminds me a lot of economy car hoods, before most went to gas shocks :)
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Thank you, Keith! Very cool that you have the CBM 8032 in all it's 80 column glory, let alone the SuperPET boards inside! Because it was my first computer experience, getting the 4016 model was pretty much a must. And you are correct. Kirk did have a PET in his collection of antiques. Impressive he kept it working after 300 years. I thought 43 years was a stretch.
Keith Harper
Very nice pickup! I have a commodore 8032 in my collection (which is actually a super pet due to a board swap). Never had a PET growing up but always loved the retrofuturisic look to them so I was quite happy when I picked mine up a few years ago. Plus James T Kirk had one so I knew they had to be awesome ;)
