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Model 4016
🕑 Added 2025-04-30 02:40:42 +0000 UTCMost anyone who is 50 or older will clearly remember the first time that they touched a computer. Feel free to comment on your first memory if you are in that age bracket. For me it was the Commodore PET 4016 in 1982 thanks to the public education system. A truly amazing experience!
Photo: Documenting my first encounter with a 'computer' via prehistoric 'selfie'
In my 1988 UWO Physics lab they had a bunch of PET 2001-N’s that we had to do assignments on. I assumed those were the new version of the PET 4016 and was not impressed. Only now I realize they were older…Almost 10-year old computers at that point! They had the little 9” screens, not the 12” like the 4016 I used. Who could work with a 9” screen? Oh, wait a minute…
In 1995 I had the chance to buy an obsolete unit at a flea market up north for $40 but ultimately decided it was a frivolous purchase. Admittedly short-sighted.
I saw the CBM version of the PET at the Brantford computer museum in 2016 and learned from a volunteer that collectors had developed a flash drive option for loading software. Interesting, but it was more meaningful just to see that huge boxy case again. Now it was a museum piece… feeling old!
Photo: Syd Bolton’s computer museum gave me that nostalgic hit in 2016
Because of its presence in schools, I am not alone in my nostalgia, and a PET is pretty much unobtainable as a collection computer…or at least in any way that won’t break the bank or have me end up with a half-destroyed ‘parts’ machine. Sometimes never owning one is just a reality that we as collectors have to accept.
Anyway, thanks for reading this post.
Comments
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I wasn't expecting anyone to say a minicomputer as their first childhood experience. Anyway, setting up a VIC-20 yourself is pretty impressive for a 7 year old. Great stories, thanks!
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You have a good memory, Michael!
Michael Del Corso
TI/99 4A. I was three years old.
Dante Blando
The first computers that I touched were at my mom's job. She worked QA for Mohawk Data Sciences, it was 1979, and I was four. These were what we'd now think of as minicomputers -- giant hard drive platters in Bundt cake containers, terminals with amber screens, huge tractor-feed printers, the works. My first home computer was a VIC-20, when I was 7. That was also a magical Xmas morning, as I set it up myself while my parents slept. I screwed the TV/Aux slider into the balun for the VHF antenna (which we already had for the cable box), flipped it over, and...
