An early Commodore PET
On October 17, 1977 the Commodore PET started shipping. There was an initial run of 100 units and this unit may have been one of them. This PET 2001-8 model is serial number 10051 (number 51). It’s not clear if the first 100 were pre-production units or shipping production units (or both) but this one does have some interesting attributes.
Some things to note with this example. This motherboard has no solder mask on top or bottom which is unusual. The monitor/analog section is also unique and the cassette deck was a Sanyo consumer unit that was modified to fit this case. One unique feature that is easily recognizable as an early unit is the folding arm as opposed to the later solid bar that props up the top. It also has an early metal plaque type label as opposed to the thin plastic/paper sticker labels in later models.
This motherboard has no solder mask on top or bottom which is unusal. The monitor/analog section is also unique and the cassette deck was a Sanyo consumer unit that was modified to fit this case. One unique feature that is easily recognizable as an early unit is the folding arm as opposed to the later solid bar that props up the top.
Below are a number of pictures. These are of the main unit:
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – front
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – profile
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – rear
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – side
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – rear profile
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – internal
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – base and power supply
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – bottom base
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – front on
The motherboard:
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – motherboard
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – motherboard rear
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – logo on motherboard
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – motherboard label
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – ROMs
The monitor and analog board:
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – analog board
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – 320022 Rev A – top
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – 320022 Rev A – bottom
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – monitor bottom
The Sanyo cassette drive:
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – cassette deck
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – cassette case
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- PET 2001-8 10051 – cassette internals
Unlike later Commodore machines, PETs had no kernel ROM functions for the IEEE-488 port and users had to write their own for using peripherals such as modems.