Old Commodore CBM & PET
11 messages in this thread
Well folks, I just got 2 machines given to me, and one of them is broken,
so I thought somebody that's nostalgic, and a hardware type might be
interested in it. It's an original Commodore PET, complete with the
chicklet keyboard, and built in tape drive. I have no idea what's wrong
with it, but if anyone wants it, (FREE) just holler. If I don't get any
response to this message, the machine gets sacraficed to the dumpster god
within the next couple of days! The other machine I got is a Commodore CBM
8032, complete with 80 column monitor built in, BASIC 4.0 in ROM, etc.
This machine appears to be working, and I also have the dual disk drive
unit for it, but it's sort of in pieces, and might not work. If anyone can
tell me if it's still possible to get ANY software for the 8032, or any
other peripherals for it, PLEASE let me know, as I'd like to use it, even
if it's an antique (I used to drive my Model T daily too!).
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike, if you want to pay the shipping to get it off of your floor, you can
send it to me. I might be able to fix it. It may be possible to get
software for the 8032 – put a note up on the antique computer forum. (I
forget its name, but there is one).
Bob
Mike….I've got some PET software here, so we can get together sometime
and check that PET out. There's a fuse on the back….did you check
that?
Steve
Steve:
Well, on the 8032 there's a fuse in the fuseholder, on the PET there's
just a hole in the case where a fuseholder should be. Perhaps that's the
problem? Did PET software run on the 8032? If so, did it have any problems
because the screensize is different?
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
BASIC software for the PET will run on the 8032, but anything written in
machine language will not. The screen size difference does distort the
display, but you can get a program that will put the 40-column display
down the center of the 8032 screen and it will look normal.
—Betty
Well, that missing fuse is a problem, I'd say. Have you opened up the PET
yet? Does it seem to be anything else missing?
I'm not sure about the 8032. I never owned one.
Steve
Mike, there is a place in Illinois that sells software and other things
for the 8032. I never thought I'd forget the name of that place, but I
have. It's something Music Shop, of all things! Anyway, if you ask over
on CBMAPP, they can give you the name and phone number. I gave my three
8032/8096 machines to a church only a few months ago, and gave them all
the software I had to go along with it. I had WordPro4+ (word processor)
and PaperClip (better word processor), SuperBASE (the fore-runner of the
Amiga and PC SuperBASE, and written by the same people), and VisiCalc, an
assembler, an Eprom burner, and quite a few other nice little things. I
also still have a 6-pen color plotter with a cable and software that lets
it run with those machiens or with a C-64. I overlooked that when I was
packing up all the stuff. Also, that music store sells a complete
accounting package whose name I've forgotten, but it was pretty good.
Completely integrated package with accounts payable, accounts receivable,
general ledger, inventory, job costing, and maybe more. I know that I
spent most of a summer getting that package going for a swimming pool
company in Dallas, and was rather impressed with it once I figured it all
out. It was a bit slow, but extremely accurate and very hard to make a
mistake. There was a time when it was recommended highly by lots of CPA's
because it was so accurate and fool-proof. But slow – written in BASIC,
mostly with POKE's as best I can recall. Anyway, drop over to CBMAPP and
talk with them about your 8032. It's a neat computer. I loved mine, and
was sorry to part with them, but needed the room.
Is your drive an 8050 or a 4040? They work the same way. I still have a
few of the manuals for those drives, I think. Not that they help a great
deal. Commodore's manuals have improved tremendously since those days.
You should have a Pet-to-IEEE cable that goes from the center of the back
of the computer to the disk drive. After that, you use IEEE-2-IEEE cables
<continued>
Betty:
The drive is the is an 8050. I hope I can get it (the drive) working, as
it's partially taken apart, with the #1 drive just sitting in the box
unhooked. The #0 drive appears to be installed ok, so perhaps if I can't
use the 1 drive I could still use the 0 drive. I was thinking of hooking
it up to my Amiga, and using it as a sort of smart terminal, as I recall
from when I had my PETs (I had 2 of them, one an original with tape drive,
the other was a full size KB CBM model) there is an RS232<->IEEE488
adapter that I think was made specially for the PET. Do you happen to have
a manual on the 8032 as well? I notice that the available connectors on it
differ from the PET 2001, and as I only vaguely remember those, I'm sure I
don't have any idea what these are!
When I had my CBM I had it complete with the original sequential access
dual floppy drive unit, and the C= IEEE488 printer, do you happen to
remember the model numbers of those units?
Strangly enough I think my daughter seems to like the 8032 better than
either my Amiga, or our (more hers than mine) CDTV. I'm not sure, but I
think the reason for this is that my Amiga is MY Amiga, and the CDTV
doesn't look enough like a computer for her, whereas the 8032 she's
already started calling HER computer! (of course I don't mine, and if I
can either get the 8050 going, or replace it, and get some of the
educational software that I remember was around years ago, she might have
lots of fun with it).
It's funny, this week seems to be my nostolgia week, as I got the 8032,
waking some (hopefully more soon) memories of my first computer, and I
bought another car, a 1984 Ford LTD, that's almost identical to a car I
owned back in 1985!
// -Mike Schiller
\X/ AMIGA! On AutoPilot in sunny Fort Lauderdale
Mike,
I still have my TRANSACTOR's Commodore InnerSpace Anthology somewhere, but
when I reached for it just now, it had hidden itself.
I believe the original dual floppy was a 2040. It had one extra sector on
the outer group of tracks that the 4040 and subsequent drives of that
format type did not have, which made it slightly incompatible with the
others and caused lots of problems for people who tried to write to disks
using both kinds of drives. I cannot think of the numbers of the printers
at the moment, but can find out.
My club still has a complete set of the 60 or so educational disks that
Commodore put out about 1982. You can run those on the 8032, but they
were made for the 40-column screen, so you have to run a program first
that puts all the text in the middle 40 columns. It is included on each
of the disks. As a matter of fact, my club has just about everything that
was ever released in public domain for those machines. Our Classic
Commodore Interest Group maintains that library, and still provides
support for people who have the machines.
—Betty
to daisy-chain other devices. Be aware that the port on the back is not a
true RS232. You have to have a special adapter before you can use a modem
on it.
My computer club has a very active group of people who still have and love
those machines. People from lots of other clubs (IBM, APPLE, MAC, etc.)
love to come down and play with them, because that was where they started
with computers.
—Betty
There was an emulator that let the 8032 run regular PET software. Screen
remap was all that was necessary and it worked well. Don't know where
you'd find either PET or 8032 software though. I loved them both but gave
them up for the color and bitmapped graphics gods.
—–Paul—–