I was given a pet 2001 by my grandma when I was 6 and I still have it with all my original ( mostly hacked or illegal ) software and I love the stupid thing.
Okay there really is no denying it. Late 70s/ early 80s computers like the Commodore PET and IBM 5150 are some of the coolest looking computers out there. I'd almost wish for modern day PC's to look like that (including being made of sheet metal and weighing way more than they should).
With a little bit of knowhow, you might be able to make your own computer in the style of the PET or the 5150. The biggest problem may be finding the right floppy drives, although that may be easily mitigated by using USB ports instead.
I really love the aesthetics of the PET. Still one of the best-looking machines out there. I wonder if it's affordable to 3D-print a PET chassis and retrofit a modern machine inside.
I learned to program on green phosphorous displays on early computers, and to this day I still love turning the background of my code editors black and the main foreground text to some form of green. Something in me still gets excited when I see these old computers, and yes, my heart did skip a small beat when I heard it had 32k of RAM. Why? Because it is actually possible to imagine what you can do with that much memory. Today most programmers don't even give a crap about memory because it is virtually unlimited. So don't feel odd. I love these old systems, too. I still may just pick up an Apple IIe sometime.
I understand perfectly how you feel about old hardware like this. While I am not a retro computer collector, I am a retro game collector. I have a lot of appreciation for strange and quirky retro hardware. One of my favorites is the Vectrex, which features a built in vector graphic display. The accessories released for it include a light pen with accompanying animation software, and a head mounted display that allows certain software to be viewed in 3D. Extremely outdated and clunky? Absolutely! But that is exactly why I love owning one.
Never in my life would I think that I would finally figure out what kind of dinosaur my grandmother has kept through the past 30 years, and only until now have I realized how much impact it had on the personal computer industry. This exact model has been on display in my house, much like a work of art, and near my bedroom for ages. There had been something that always intrigued me about it, whether it be because of the supposed history about it or the fact that the thing glows a sickly green on some nights. Knowing what happened in order to make that personal computer come into being is something that I am thankful for greatly. History and computers are something that I've always loved, and seeing the two combine in such a personal way for me is absolutely astounding. I've watched LGR's videos for a while, and this is by far my favorite. Even the sims videos that had me laughing for ages, this review is at the top of my list.
Dude, sweet review! I work at a museum and we've got about 10 PETs, most of them working. Quite recently we let the chancelor of the local university play pacman on one of the earliest models, you know with the one with terrible tiny keyboar...It was fun to behold.
My mother was a school teacher, she would bring the PET home on weekends and I can remember this thing sitting on my dining room table and my sister and I typing program listings into it and then being amazed. This TH-cam channel is definitely in my top 5, excellent content and very well produced. Congrats.
Douglas Adams talked about this thing, being that it was his first experience with a computer and could not fathom what possible use it would be. He said it looked like something that had crashed in Roswell. Great review, you made it all seductive, like I should have been watching in private in my room....oh yeah, baby...take that chassis off.
Your love for things like these is positively inspiring, I must say. The bit at the end reminded me just why I feel you deserve way more subscribers than you already have. =)
Well done, Clint. Your reviews keeps getting better and better, and this one is one of the best. The first section is professional quality, and having you, at the end, sitting beside the thing, talking on what YOU think about it, is the perfect complement.
Great review Clint. We had a PET back in elementary school (about 35 years ago now). Loved the backstory/history that you did in the 1st part of the video.
32Kb RAM was the perfect amount for 1978. When the VIC-20 was released in 1980, it had a meager 5Kb of RAM but it should never have been released without at least 8Kb.
Once you started showing the games I was overcome with waves of nostalgia. I'd sit in front of my PET for hours, transfixed by those incredible games and those beeps. The things they were able to accomplish in just 32k of RAM were incredible.
Brilliant review as always! I also can appreciate your feels over the PET. Much of this older equipment can't do much, especially when compared to what we use our machines for nowadays... but there is something lost nowadays when you really look at these old machines. Thanks for sharing!
Your passion for computers is insightful. I'm not one for computers or hardware but because you talk about it with so much love it makes it fascinating. Thanks, I've learned something new today about computers.
oh my god that keyboard sounds like your in a factory stamping out parts for a car not typing! man i love i live in a time where people like LGR can get paid to make crazy vids about old pcs that no one really cares about, it makes me happy.
Found you via Skylines review and really loving your content. Haven't subbed to another game channel in couple of years since TB. Keep this varied content coming! Love it.
watching your system reviews is the best. I love most of your stuff but finding this is like Christmas everytime. I know these reviews are especially hard to do, because of all the Infos you need but I can say it's always worth it and I'm truly interested in your opinion about these maschines. Thank you for the good work.
Pi sheep - EPIC! Also, the keyboard sound @6:25 instantly brought me back to my terminal when programming CP/M Z80-based industrial systems. IEEE488 - I worked with instruments via that too - Love this video!
As usual, Clint, this was a very beautiful review. I always seem to be more cheery when I see your videos. I used to go to this electronic junk place once, and I kid you not, I must have seen a few of these Commodore PETs on a pile. I know they were PET computers because they all had the logos. They have very distinctive shapes as computers. Regretfully... I didn't have a god damn clue about the values of these machines. I was more focused on PC and laptop parts at the time. This all happened around the first quarter of 2011. What hurts even more is how they looked on those piles. I truly regret not recovering any of those after seeing this video.
awesome video Clint! contemporary synthesizers have adopted the vintage look, computers should too, not all of course but some. And oh man that Spacebar, amazing sound.
Awesome video LGR! This was my first computer - an original 8k PET 2001. It was donated to my family in about 1983 by someone who had upgraded to a 4032 model and it was our only computer until many years later when we got a cheap DOS clone XT machine. I had most of the software you showed - although not the Zork-style adventure game which I would have loved. A few years ago the guy who gave us the 2001 retired and also gave me his 4032 so while the 2001 sadly died some time in the late 90s I still have the 4032 and the dual disk drives as well. I recently added the sound circuit (which was not stock on the 4032) and loved hearing those Space Invader sound effects again. Some of my other favourite games were MINER!, OZERO and FROG!. There were also quite a few of these cute animation apps like HAWAII! and EVEREST! which I ran over and over again.
Very interesting peace of history Clint, I knew you'd review that machine sooner or later, as I've been seeing it in the background in some of your videos for a while now. I've never even seen a Commodore CBM let alone owned one and It's an interesting piece of computer history and a great start for Commodore back in the day. There were countless Commodore 64s and Vic 20s but for me definitely, the CBM and the PET are an interesting thing to own and I'd love to have the space and the money to collect such machines.
I agree with EVERYTHING you said! I have a pretty large collection of "vintage" computers and just LOVE looking at them! I don't even care if they don't work or not! Great video!
+Pizza Billund LEGO Creations It almost seems worth it to go and buy one of these things JUST to make that joke. (of course, getting anybody to take it seriously would be another thing.)
Adventureland was from Scott Adams (not the cartoonist). His company was Adventure International and was located in Maitland, Florida. There was quite a library of text adventure games that he wrote. Commodore had several exclusive releases of his games for their platforms; I played The Count, Adventureland and Treasure Island (for example) on the Vic-20.
These are really cool to see. I'm only 20, so I grew up playing on stuff like iMacs and Windows 98/2000 computers. It's incredible to see the leaps and bounds made in computers in the last 40 years.
The computer room in the middle school I attended was full of Commodore Pets and TRS-80s. This was 1982, and they were already outdated - floppy disks were starting to replace cassette drives. Students were allowed to use the computers during lunch, and kids would literally fill the room to capacity every single day. If you wanted a seat at a keyboard, you had to be in there almost as soon as the lunch bell rang, or you were stuck watching someone else have all the fun. The Basic Computer Games book you show in this video was a common sight as well - I even still have my copy! Great memories, thanks for uploading! :D
This video is one I share to my friends because i as well find it hard to quite explain the feeling of why I love my PET ( I personally have a SuperPET ) It just the overall experience of the machine, the few blips when you boot it up, the overall design you touched on all the points and I just wanted to say thanks for reviewing one of my favorite vintage computers.
I love these vintage computer reviews! I see no reason to get a Commodore PET at all, but it's nice to see a review of it, and I also like the curiosity of how these more limited games worked.
Few months ago I was walking to work and there was an electronics recycling drive going on, spotted one of these from a mile out and walked right up to the people loading it in. It was a 2001 without the tape deck and it had the nice black keyboard. They let me have it free of charge, plugged it in on my break and it worked. Still have it, still works.
FYI for anyone interested. As of mid 2016, just about any PET goes for no less than $1000 (cnd anyways) plus shipping on ebay. I feel like the 'Alien: Isolation' game has single-handledly boosted the desirability of these things lol
Nah, maybe the rarer models or the Buy It Now Ebay prices are high, but the machine I showed here still sells for around $300 www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Vintage-Commodore-CBM-8032-PET-Computer-TESTED-WORKS-CLEAN-/282086698238
eBay used to be great for collecting old electronics/computers/games. Now the price of everything is just horribly inflated. Damn you hipsters! I liked this stuff before it was cool! Wait... that was a pretty hipster thing to say. :P
I planned to stop by my local Salvation Army thrift store this morning for precisely that reason. But by the time I got what I wanted to do done on my modern octalcore full tower it was too warm for my disability.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. i lost my PET with 40 column and 16k in a flooded basement in 1994. I remember swapping out the 65?? read/write chip for a few bucks. It was kind of exciting to figure that problem out. It was a cool computer and I had the good keyboard.
I knew a guy who owned a PET 2001 many years ago. He had gotten it from his dad. Unfortunately it didn't work. Cool to see these machines are still around. Looks like something you'd find in Fallout or Alien. Thanks for the vid.
I learned to program on these in 1981/1982 along with an Exidy Sorcerer. Then later, I purchased a Commodore Vic-20, followed a couple years later by the C64. The next computer I bought after that was an old Mac SE. I've had many computers over the years, but the PETS always have a soft spot in my heart for they take me back to my early teenage years.
Fantastic, when your last video came up I was wishing you'd do a video about the PET! I got a non-working 3032 series PET for £40, and hope to get it working some day!
With years ever since this video was published I'm now commenting. I found this video trying to find info about the CBM pet 3032, a model I owned back in the 80ies alongside the external dual HD floppy drives. They both were given to me, back then, from my late uncle who had used both in his factory until he made a machine upgrade with something I never asked him about. So, having to get rid of the 3032, he gave it to me. Sadly, back then I was a teenager who only wanted to play videogames, internet was a misspelled soccer team form Milan and software of ANY kind, let alone the games I craved, for that machine around amounted to zilch, so when my father found a friend of his who wanted to take both machine and floppy drives in in exchange of a C64 I JUMPED to the occasion. Nowadays from time to time I travel on memory lane to back to those carefree days (for me, they were) and on a search to deepen the knowledge of what I left behind back in the times, I happened here. Nice video.
Good job, very nice episode with some awesome trivia (Pet Rock? Had to check this one). The computer is indeed beautiful with it's retro-sci-fi look. And these green monitors... ahhh. Some of those games actually seem better than they should be. Fast and snappy, unlike later spectrum games. Oh, and I was puzzled by the 3D game you showed (the last one). Crazy.
That book takes my way back, thanks for showing that. I used to loan that from the local library weeks on end and I ended up typing almost every game on it to my C64 I got as a kid.
I remember when I first encountered the mighty PET 4016 on a visit to the highschool i would attend that fall. I had a Vic 20 and had hung around the Tandy computer store (hey, in 1979 a guy had to get his computer fix however he could), but these, with their crisp green screens in that fantastic looking case fascinated me.
Wow! A few days ago i thought:"Oh man it would be awesome, if LGR reviews this mashine!" And now you did it. :D I always loved the look of this mashine and I still do. And i just want to say thank you! Because your style making videos is so unique and awesome, even your LGR plays solitaire was amusing for me. Keep your great work and have a nice day! :)
As always, awesome video! Some dream about owning a Ferrari and some of owning a PET, Im the later but a bit to expensive for me right now so I stick with my Commodore 64 from 1983 that I had since I was a brat and it still works, my lill "breadbin". Emulators is a nice way to get things done easy and quick but I have a hard time using them. If I go retro I want it all even the frustration with finding what I want, the loading time, the adjustment of the tone head to not get that "Load Error", its part of the history and that is what I want to be apart of even today. ♥
Man, I've always loved the look of this thing, but when you pulled out a prop rod to hold the top up like the hood of a car it killed me. Amazing. Also, pi sheep. :D
When I first started Polytechnic they had a suite of these (PET). I remember even back then (mid 80s) it was very limited. Still, typing in a game, bug fixing your mistakes and getting it going was always fun.
I wish I had mine left.. Got a hold of one back in 1994 but it was gone inbetween a move or two.. Miss it.. It was in great condition too. At least I have my other Commodore machines to tinker with.. ;) Thanks for the vid!
Oh wow, the PET! I started off with computers in grade school with the PET, and it is because of this computer that I love them so much. :) I used to have the original PET with the tape drive and chicklet keyboard, but it got lost during a move. :( Ah Commodore. You were once so great, but lost it with the Amiga, which was amazing itself for the time. Subscribed! I'll be watching a lot of your videos. I can tell just be the sidebar on the right of things I need to watch. Thanks!
When I was going to high school, we had Commodore PET's in the classroom, where we learned to program in BASIC. We had the floppy drive (installed on an A/V cart, for portability). There were some who had really, REALLY complex games they'd either written or gotten from one of the Bulletin Boards (the Internet's precursor). It was SO cool. I remember these with great fondness. After about a year and a half of these, we switched to standard IBM PC's, and never looked back. *SIGH* Those were the days.
First computer I ever had my hands on in the junior high computer lab. Didn't get to use it much. In high school was had "advanced" to Commodore 64s. Learned BASIC and a lof of programs on that. Time flies.
When I was in high school, in the mid-late 80's, they had a lab of about 20 in a room upstairs and out of the way (they had moved on to early ibm labs by then, but I remember having classes in that room and turning them on and programming in basic string programs to have them ask questions and give personalized answers lol. It always felt kind of retrofuturistic in there, even then. (I had a c64 at home, so it was like seeing the beginnings of where commodore came from)
I used PETs quite a but in the early 80s, as my high school in The Bronx had several of them, from one of the originals with the calculator keyboard, to a SuperPet. We had a few double disk drives, which as I recall could be networked to several machines. I contest the notion that the PET was a limited machine. It came with a very user-friendly version of BASIC and had a built-in "monitor" which was a essentially a stripped-down machine language assembler. This made it possible to write hybrid programs in basic and machine code that enabled the programmer (back then, users WERE programmers because that's what computers were for, programming) to do some amazing things. The biggest limitation my friends and I encountered was that Commodore somehow made it impossible to change the operating system's pointers to the the character set from ROM to RAM. So the character set could not be copied and redefined, as one could do on the Atari, another 6502 machine. I did learn a lot on the PET and have many fond memories.
![ภาพนี้ก็ฮาเหมือนกันนะเนี้ย #1 SS8 [ พากย์นรก MEME.EXE ] | easy boy](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ytc50m91QK8/mqdefault.jpg)
I was given a pet 2001 by my grandma when I was 6 and I still have it with all my original ( mostly hacked or illegal ) software and I love the stupid thing.
Sell it.
To me.
Nice youre lucky to have got it for free
"Normally I would talk about games, but this didn't have any games, so I'm gonna show you some games."
LGR logic, gotta love it ;)
Games in boxes, no, which is what I was taking about :)
But then my lame comment doesn't work anymore :(
Lil'Mlg
She's talking to someone named Athome, we don't need to care about the message!
My comment was a joke too : P
I like LGR logic. It's like if Hunter S Thompson was a game reviewer. I dig that.
6:33 those typing sounds. Glorious! Gloooorious!
It really does make even the most mundane typing an event.
Lazy Game Reviews Yea, from the clunk clunk of the keys!
*Sound of the avalanche in the middle of the night*
- ... What is happening?
- Don't worry, it's just me typing on my PET.
Lol! More like an earthquake when he types on it!
which are all good things :)
Okay there really is no denying it.
Late 70s/ early 80s computers like the Commodore PET and IBM 5150 are some of the coolest looking computers out there. I'd almost wish for modern day PC's to look like that (including being made of sheet metal and weighing way more than they should).
My case is made from sheet aluminium...
With a little bit of knowhow, you might be able to make your own computer in the style of the PET or the 5150. The biggest problem may be finding the right floppy drives, although that may be easily mitigated by using USB ports instead.
My case was made of cast iron ;)
Easiest way to do that is to embed a modern PC in a PET casing.
@@weirdwalrus5757 no
I really love the aesthetics of the PET. Still one of the best-looking machines out there.
I wonder if it's affordable to 3D-print a PET chassis and retrofit a modern machine inside.
Man, the 6502 is like the little processor that could. Seems like it was in almost everything back in the day.
Yup. Mostly because it was the cheapest option.
And it has been used up to the present (most notably in the Nintendo NES / SNES) and is STILL in production!
I learned to program on green phosphorous displays on early computers, and to this day I still love turning the background of my code editors black and the main foreground text to some form of green. Something in me still gets excited when I see these old computers, and yes, my heart did skip a small beat when I heard it had 32k of RAM. Why? Because it is actually possible to imagine what you can do with that much memory. Today most programmers don't even give a crap about memory because it is virtually unlimited. So don't feel odd. I love these old systems, too. I still may just pick up an Apple IIe sometime.
I understand perfectly how you feel about old hardware like this. While I am not a retro computer collector, I am a retro game collector. I have a lot of appreciation for strange and quirky retro hardware. One of my favorites is the Vectrex, which features a built in vector graphic display. The accessories released for it include a light pen with accompanying animation software, and a head mounted display that allows certain software to be viewed in 3D. Extremely outdated and clunky? Absolutely! But that is exactly why I love owning one.
Esquire Fox
Ever had a look at the Channel of VectrexRoli ? He has reviews lots of really weird Vectrex hardware accessories.
Congrats on 250k LGR! Your one of the most consistent reviewer and game player on YT- you deserve every awesome fan and no haters ! Cheers bud
Thank you!
That rounded commodore looks amazing. So retro-futuristic!
Never in my life would I think that I would finally figure out what kind of dinosaur my grandmother has kept through the past 30 years, and only until now have I realized how much impact it had on the personal computer industry. This exact model has been on display in my house, much like a work of art, and near my bedroom for ages. There had been something that always intrigued me about it, whether it be because of the supposed history about it or the fact that the thing glows a sickly green on some nights.
Knowing what happened in order to make that personal computer come into being is something that I am thankful for greatly. History and computers are something that I've always loved, and seeing the two combine in such a personal way for me is absolutely astounding. I've watched LGR's videos for a while, and this is by far my favorite. Even the sims videos that had me laughing for ages, this review is at the top of my list.
Dude, sweet review! I work at a museum and we've got about 10 PETs, most of them working. Quite recently we let the chancelor of the local university play pacman on one of the earliest models, you know with the one with terrible tiny keyboar...It was fun to behold.
My mother was a school teacher, she would bring the PET home on weekends and I can remember this thing sitting on my dining room table and my sister and I typing program listings into it and then being amazed. This TH-cam channel is definitely in my top 5, excellent content and very well produced. Congrats.
I'd love to see an "LGR tech tales: the rise and fall of commodore"
Douglas Adams talked about this thing, being that it was his first experience with a computer and could not fathom what possible use it would be. He said it looked like something that had crashed in Roswell.
Great review, you made it all seductive, like I should have been watching in private in my room....oh yeah, baby...take that chassis off.
Your research on these old computers is AMAZING! Incredible detail...
Your love for things like these is positively inspiring, I must say. The bit at the end reminded me just why I feel you deserve way more subscribers than you already have. =)
Well done, Clint. Your reviews keeps getting better and better, and this one is one of the best. The first section is professional quality, and having you, at the end, sitting beside the thing, talking on what YOU think about it, is the perfect complement.
That is an actual piece of art. You should review TRS-80 Model III too!
What a pleasure to listen to you.... Thanks for showing us the PET.
Great review Clint. We had a PET back in elementary school (about 35 years ago now). Loved the backstory/history that you did in the 1st part of the video.
32kb of ram?! It is the future!!
"Oh did we say 32kb? We meant tb lol sry"
That's too much. Who would ever need that much memory? 4K is plenty.
32Kb RAM was the perfect amount for 1978. When the VIC-20 was released in 1980, it had a meager 5Kb of RAM but it should never have been released without at least 8Kb.
32kb! I only have 1000b
Just a fart is like 1.44 MB
Once you started showing the games I was overcome with waves of nostalgia. I'd sit in front of my PET for hours, transfixed by those incredible games and those beeps. The things they were able to accomplish in just 32k of RAM were incredible.
The games & graphics were laughable to witness.
Brilliant review as always! I also can appreciate your feels over the PET. Much of this older equipment can't do much, especially when compared to what we use our machines for nowadays... but there is something lost nowadays when you really look at these old machines. Thanks for sharing!
Your passion for computers is insightful. I'm not one for computers or hardware but because you talk about it with so much love it makes it fascinating. Thanks, I've learned something new today about computers.
oh my god that keyboard sounds like your in a factory stamping out parts for a car not typing! man i love i live in a time where people like LGR can get paid to make crazy vids about old pcs that no one really cares about, it makes me happy.
Awesome times indeed, I feel lucky :)
Brilliant review as always Clint! Thanks!
Brilliant as always! I've had tons of fun with those IBMs I bought a few months back based on your feedback!
Found you via Skylines review and really loving your content. Haven't subbed to another game channel in couple of years since TB.
Keep this varied content coming! Love it.
LGR you ever think of doing books on tape, my lord you could read the phonebook and I would be there the whole time O_O
Oh hai tommy
Assimandeli recording porn
thirdbman You did naught?
You're tearing me apart lisa!
Glorious, glorious room reference
watching your system reviews is the best. I love most of your stuff but finding this is like Christmas everytime.
I know these reviews are especially hard to do, because of all the Infos you need but I can say it's always worth it and I'm truly interested in your opinion about these maschines.
Thank you for the good work.
Pi sheep - EPIC! Also, the keyboard sound @6:25 instantly brought me back to my terminal when programming CP/M Z80-based industrial systems.
IEEE488 - I worked with instruments via that too - Love this video!
Awesome video, Clint! Can't wait to see more soon! ^_^
As usual, Clint, this was a very beautiful review. I always seem to be more cheery when I see your videos. I used to go to this electronic junk place once, and I kid you not, I must have seen a few of these Commodore PETs on a pile. I know they were PET computers because they all had the logos. They have very distinctive shapes as computers.
Regretfully... I didn't have a god damn clue about the values of these machines. I was more focused on PC and laptop parts at the time. This all happened around the first quarter of 2011. What hurts even more is how they looked on those piles. I truly regret not recovering any of those after seeing this video.
awesome video Clint! contemporary synthesizers have adopted the vintage look, computers should too, not all of course but some. And oh man that Spacebar, amazing sound.
Awesome video LGR! This was my first computer - an original 8k PET 2001. It was donated to my family in about 1983 by someone who had upgraded to a 4032 model and it was our only computer until many years later when we got a cheap DOS clone XT machine. I had most of the software you showed - although not the Zork-style adventure game which I would have loved.
A few years ago the guy who gave us the 2001 retired and also gave me his 4032 so while the 2001 sadly died some time in the late 90s I still have the 4032 and the dual disk drives as well. I recently added the sound circuit (which was not stock on the 4032) and loved hearing those Space Invader sound effects again.
Some of my other favourite games were MINER!, OZERO and FROG!. There were also quite a few of these cute animation apps like HAWAII! and EVEREST! which I ran over and over again.
Nice review there, I've been always curious about what the PET computers were like.
Very interesting indeed.
Using π to represent sheep... brilliant!
VWestlife A tau fan, are we?
I thought he was British or something
Very interesting peace of history Clint, I knew you'd review that machine sooner or later, as I've been seeing it in the background in some of your videos for a while now. I've never even seen a Commodore CBM let alone owned one and It's an interesting piece of computer history and a great start for Commodore back in the day. There were countless Commodore 64s and Vic 20s but for me definitely, the CBM and the PET are an interesting thing to own and I'd love to have the space and the money to collect such machines.
I agree with EVERYTHING you said! I have a pretty large collection of "vintage" computers and just LOVE looking at them! I don't even care if they don't work or not!
Great video!
Me: Hey, i got a pet!
Friend: Cool, what pet?
Me: A Commodore PET. *puts on sunglasses*
Nice one!
I didn't upload that video.
+Pizza Billund LEGO Creations
Lesser Commodore is questioning your choices.
+Pizza Billund LEGO Creations
It almost seems worth it to go and buy one of these things JUST to make that joke. (of course, getting anybody to take it seriously would be another thing.)
Adventureland was from Scott Adams (not the cartoonist). His company was Adventure International and was located in Maitland, Florida. There was quite a library of text adventure games that he wrote. Commodore had several exclusive releases of his games for their platforms; I played The Count, Adventureland and Treasure Island (for example) on the Vic-20.
thedungeondelver
i guess there where thirteen, and there where ported to nearly every popular system, including the C64, ZX Spectrum and 8-Bit Atari.
So cool. Love these videos.
Thanks for taking the time and effort.
These are really cool to see. I'm only 20, so I grew up playing on stuff like iMacs and Windows 98/2000 computers. It's incredible to see the leaps and bounds made in computers in the last 40 years.
YES!!!
more hardware reviews please LGR. i love them so.
I remember that when I bought my first car back in 1991, the car dealer used a Commodore Pet to print out the details of the purchase.
Wow....even back then it would of been 'retro'.
You did it! Thanks man, what a great review.
another great video from Clint!!!
The computer room in the middle school I attended was full of Commodore Pets and TRS-80s. This was 1982, and they were already outdated - floppy disks were starting to replace cassette drives. Students were allowed to use the computers during lunch, and kids would literally fill the room to capacity every single day. If you wanted a seat at a keyboard, you had to be in there almost as soon as the lunch bell rang, or you were stuck watching someone else have all the fun. The Basic Computer Games book you show in this video was a common sight as well - I even still have my copy! Great memories, thanks for uploading! :D
Funny, informative and LGR-y as always. Love your vids, Clint! Keep 'em coming! ^^
This video is one I share to my friends because i as well find it hard to quite explain the feeling of why I love my PET ( I personally have a SuperPET ) It just the overall experience of the machine, the few blips when you boot it up, the overall design you touched on all the points and I just wanted to say thanks for reviewing one of my favorite vintage computers.
Very professional and interesting video ! Thanks for posting !
Thanks LGR. Waves of nostalgia in there. Great.
Two computer reviews in less than a week? YAY!
I hope you get around the reviewing that Thomson MO5 of yours :)
Love your reviews. Thanx again:)
I love these vintage computer reviews!
I see no reason to get a Commodore PET at all, but it's nice to see a review of it, and I also like the curiosity of how these more limited games worked.
Few months ago I was walking to work and there was an electronics recycling drive going on, spotted one of these from a mile out and walked right up to the people loading it in. It was a 2001 without the tape deck and it had the nice black keyboard. They let me have it free of charge, plugged it in on my break and it worked. Still have it, still works.
Great video. I love the sound of that keyboard
FYI for anyone interested. As of mid 2016, just about any PET goes for no less than $1000 (cnd anyways) plus shipping on ebay. I feel like the 'Alien: Isolation' game has single-handledly boosted the desirability of these things lol
Nah, maybe the rarer models or the Buy It Now Ebay prices are high, but the machine I showed here still sells for around $300
www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Vintage-Commodore-CBM-8032-PET-Computer-TESTED-WORKS-CLEAN-/282086698238
+Lazy Game Reviews Ahh, eBay.ca has a much smaller selection, forgot to log into the us version. Thanks.
did you know there are commodore pet phone?
eBay used to be great for collecting old electronics/computers/games. Now the price of everything is just horribly inflated. Damn you hipsters! I liked this stuff before it was cool! Wait... that was a pretty hipster thing to say. :P
I planned to stop by my local Salvation Army thrift store this morning for precisely that reason. But by the time I got what I wanted to do done on my modern octalcore full tower it was too warm for my disability.
Love it, it was the main computer in my school days. Great to see it again.
Last time I seen one in person was in my early school days! Always loved the look of them!
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. i lost my PET with 40 column and 16k in a flooded basement in 1994. I remember swapping out the 65?? read/write chip for a few bucks. It was kind of exciting to figure that problem out. It was a cool computer and I had the good keyboard.
I knew a guy who owned a PET 2001 many years ago. He had gotten it from his dad. Unfortunately it didn't work. Cool to see these machines are still around. Looks like something you'd find in Fallout or Alien. Thanks for the vid.
I learned to program on these in 1981/1982 along with an Exidy Sorcerer. Then later, I purchased a Commodore Vic-20, followed a couple years later by the C64. The next computer I bought after that was an old Mac SE. I've had many computers over the years, but the PETS always have a soft spot in my heart for they take me back to my early teenage years.
Well said, This machine has an amazing look, feel and sound. Great Video!
Good job on your review. Very well done.
Fantastic, when your last video came up I was wishing you'd do a video about the PET! I got a non-working 3032 series PET for £40, and hope to get it working some day!
With years ever since this video was published I'm now commenting. I found this video trying to find info about the CBM pet 3032, a model I owned back in the 80ies alongside the external dual HD floppy drives. They both were given to me, back then, from my late uncle who had used both in his factory until he made a machine upgrade with something I never asked him about. So, having to get rid of the 3032, he gave it to me.
Sadly, back then I was a teenager who only wanted to play videogames, internet was a misspelled soccer team form Milan and software of ANY kind, let alone the games I craved, for that machine around amounted to zilch, so when my father found a friend of his who wanted to take both machine and floppy drives in in exchange of a C64 I JUMPED to the occasion.
Nowadays from time to time I travel on memory lane to back to those carefree days (for me, they were) and on a search to deepen the knowledge of what I left behind back in the times, I happened here. Nice video.
Good job, very nice episode with some awesome trivia (Pet Rock? Had to check this one). The computer is indeed beautiful with it's retro-sci-fi look. And these green monitors... ahhh. Some of those games actually seem better than they should be. Fast and snappy, unlike later spectrum games. Oh, and I was puzzled by the 3D game you showed (the last one). Crazy.
That book takes my way back, thanks for showing that. I used to loan that from the local library weeks on end and I ended up typing almost every game on it to my C64 I got as a kid.
Did the same thing with my local library's copy :) Just not with a C64, heh.
I remember when I first encountered the mighty PET 4016 on a visit to the highschool i would attend that fall. I had a Vic 20 and had hung around the Tandy computer store (hey, in 1979 a guy had to get his computer fix however he could), but these, with their crisp green screens in that fantastic looking case fascinated me.
Wow! A few days ago i thought:"Oh man it would be awesome, if LGR reviews this mashine!" And now you did it. :D I always loved the look of this mashine and I still do. And i just want to say thank you! Because your style making videos is so unique and awesome, even your LGR plays solitaire was amusing for me. Keep your great work and have a nice day! :)
The PET model shown at 3:19 looks kinda like a terminal from Fallout.
+Ethan LaBorde
The PET series in general probably inspired the design of the desktop Terminals in Fallout.
+Scowler LGR said that Terminals ARE the basis of the terminals in Fallout.
He also said think the ADM-3A.
+Scowler things like it, I mean
JordyT1998
Yeah. The overall profile is very similar.
looks like alien isolation took it as well.
A prop rod used to hold open the "hood" - brilliant!
Great video man! Keep up the good work. Especially thrifting, not sure why but I love those. Tech tales, more please!
The game options for the PET are surprisingly good. PETSCII artists got very creative with their work using limited key graphics.
YAY a hardware computer review!!! it has been a while :)
A while? There was just one last week!!
Lazy Game Reviews HAHA U know what? You right. I missed it :P
Lazy Game Reviews LOL!! Your dead right Clint!
Patrick Walsh Why do you exist?
We had one of these in my classroom at Stanford Rd. school back in the early 80s!
As always, awesome video! Some dream about owning a Ferrari and some of owning a PET, Im the later but a bit to expensive for me right now so I stick with my Commodore 64 from 1983 that I had since I was a brat and it still works, my lill "breadbin". Emulators is a nice way to get things done easy and quick but I have a hard time using them. If I go retro I want it all even the frustration with finding what I want, the loading time, the adjustment of the tone head to not get that "Load Error", its part of the history and that is what I want to be apart of even today. ♥
my highschool had a CBM 8032 and the dual disk drive. i had permission to use it even after school hours. pure bliss!!!
Some games that were fun on PET:
- Monopole (yes that's how it was spelled)
- Star Trek (more than one version IIRC)
- Text Adventures (lots of them)
6:35 "There's more to love around back too"
What a quote!
Incredibly thorough and entertaining video. Noice!
Thank you!
Great video, my first computer was the Commador 64.
Man, I've always loved the look of this thing, but when you pulled out a prop rod to hold the top up like the hood of a car it killed me. Amazing.
Also, pi sheep. :D
I can watch your video the whole day !!!
Man I would love to see your house it must be like a museum.
When I first started Polytechnic they had a suite of these (PET). I remember even back then (mid 80s) it was very limited. Still, typing in a game, bug fixing your mistakes and getting it going was always fun.
I wish I had mine left.. Got a hold of one back in 1994 but it was gone inbetween a move or two.. Miss it.. It was in great condition too. At least I have my other Commodore machines to tinker with.. ;) Thanks for the vid!
Oh wow, the PET! I started off with computers in grade school with the PET, and it is because of this computer that I love them so much. :) I used to have the original PET with the tape drive and chicklet keyboard, but it got lost during a move. :(
Ah Commodore. You were once so great, but lost it with the Amiga, which was amazing itself for the time.
Subscribed! I'll be watching a lot of your videos. I can tell just be the sidebar on the right of things I need to watch. Thanks!
When I was going to high school, we had Commodore PET's in the classroom, where we learned to program in BASIC. We had the floppy drive (installed on an A/V cart, for portability). There were some who had really, REALLY complex games they'd either written or gotten from one of the Bulletin Boards (the Internet's precursor). It was SO cool. I remember these with great fondness. After about a year and a half of these, we switched to standard IBM PC's, and never looked back. *SIGH* Those were the days.
You are awesome, great video, again.
Your haircut and facial hair are on point these days! Also great system review. Also great ambient music in the background.
love this channel
10:03 that is the most charming use of the Pi symbol I have ever seen!
First computer I ever had my hands on in the junior high computer lab. Didn't get to use it much. In high school was had "advanced" to Commodore 64s. Learned BASIC and a lof of programs on that. Time flies.
Oh boy, that sure brought back some memories!
I love the look of the PET and will to the day i die.
When I was in high school, in the mid-late 80's, they had a lab of about 20 in a room upstairs and out of the way (they had moved on to early ibm labs by then, but I remember having classes in that room and turning them on and programming in basic string programs to have them ask questions and give personalized answers lol. It always felt kind of retrofuturistic in there, even then. (I had a c64 at home, so it was like seeing the beginnings of where commodore came from)
I used PETs quite a but in the early 80s, as my high school in The Bronx had several of them, from one of the originals with the calculator keyboard, to a SuperPet. We had a few double disk drives, which as I recall could be networked to several machines. I contest the notion that the PET was a limited machine. It came with a very user-friendly version of BASIC and had a built-in "monitor" which was a essentially a stripped-down machine language assembler. This made it possible to write hybrid programs in basic and machine code that enabled the programmer (back then, users WERE programmers because that's what computers were for, programming) to do some amazing things. The biggest limitation my friends and I encountered was that Commodore somehow made it impossible to change the operating system's pointers to the the character set from ROM to RAM. So the character set could not be copied and redefined, as one could do on the Atari, another 6502 machine. I did learn a lot on the PET and have many fond memories.