Commodore PET Keys – Series 2001 Edition | Hacker News Reader

Commodore PET Keys – Series 2001 Edition

masswerk.at

41 pointsmasswerk13 comments

TBH, my heart fluttered a bit when I saw the 2001 keyboard pictures. It was magic when I discovered the PET in the 80s.... I was a typical disengaged teen at school up until that point, and by next summer I PAID money out of my own pocket to take a course on 6502 Assembler taught by Steve Punter on the other side of Toronto in a public library basement. Awww, exciting nostalgia shooting directly into my veins :)

Steve Punter

One of the under-sung heroes of Commodore's salad days.

Not Butterfield-grade. But still not widely appreciated for his contribution to Commodore telecommunications.

From what I remember, he was a really good teacher too!

The original PET keyboard was a PITA to use, but it was nonetheless tremendously cool in its day mainly because of all the graphics symbols. It was the emoji keyboard of the time, except that the PET's symbols were composable in two dimensions to make awesome-looking (by the standards of the day) pictures. The integrated B&W CRT display was crisp and clean, because it was a direct connect and didn't have an RF modulator (which you needed to connect most computers of the day to a TV set). It resembled the Macintosh more than is commonly acknowledged.

Life was simpler then. Sometimes I miss those days.

A gloriously chicletty physical keyboard, up there with the "dead men's fingers" feel of the ZX Spectrum. Just typing on it made you feel like you were in some brutally-constructed space pirate's navigation pod.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Commodore_PET_keyb...

Everyone remembers the PET for its iconic industrial design and chiclet keyboards but mustn't forget the integrated "mass storage" cassette tape player and recorder visible in the other images on that page.

I had a whole supply of cassette tapes that I bought somewhere with just 6 minutes of tape on the spools, for saving and loading of programs for the PET.

Non staggered keyboard layout was ahead of it's time. Too bad it didn't stick around.

it still is around or is coming back. I recently saw a laptop with that kind of layout and was confused. it wasn't a niche shop either.

Do you recall which?

The only thing which comes to mind with "laptop" and "ortholinear" is MNT Pocket Reform. https://mntre.com/media/reform_md/2022-06-20-introducing-mnt...

Also GRiDCASE 1510 https://www.griduk.com/products/rugged-laptops/gridcase-1510... (albeit admittedly a niche device as well)

What is the benefit to that?

Man, I hated those chiclet monstrosities. Fortunately, I had the 2001-N, with the real keyboard and green screen.

Man, I miss those tape drives and a good game of Snake!

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