22 Jun
1997
22 Jun
'97
8:10 a.m.
From: Paul E Coad <pcoad(a)crl.com>
Subject: Re: Who was in Australia?
On Fri, 20 Jun 1997, Kai Kaltenbach wrote:
> Subject: Mint Commodore PET FOR Sale
> From: "Stephen McCoy and Charmiane Barr"
> <mrsmrx(a)efni.com>
> Date: 1997/06/17Message-Id:
> <01bc7b43$fddee5c0$b8933dcf@charmaine>
> Newsgroups: aus.computers.amiga[More Headers]
I'll bite on this. How much is one of these worth?
I have almost
zero experience with PETs having only seen 2 in person. What are the
relative rarities of the various models of PETs? Did they make a
bunch of them? Are they really common in some places and pretty
rare in others?
As everyone says worth is a relative term, some computers that hvae high
perceived values are given to people, etc. This is a question YOU have
to answer as a collector, no one can set your price for you.
Well alot of the PETS were purchased by schools and some businesses,
prices for the computer back then when they were new (1977-1981) ranged
from $700-$1,200, disk drives were about $1,000 for a
dual drive model.
Nowadays in my region of California schools have been ridding
themselves
of them at a high rate. The computers are not too terribly hard to come
by but the drives are harder to find.
Rarity? Hmm, probably the most interesting is the original series
with it's colorful calculator-style keyboard (circa 1977) and in-case
cassette unit. Next I would say is the SuperPET (circa 1981, the last
of the line, which I described about two digests ago) with it's
mainframe-friendly, multi-language ability. All units had monochrome
displays and either 40x25 or 80x25 screens (no hi-res graphics without
3rd party hardware), the BASIC is almost exacly the same as in the
Commodore 64 or VIC-20 and uses a 6502 processor. Memory ranged from
the first 4k units (a short run), 8k, 16k and 32k with some of the
latter 80 column machines sporting 96k expansion bnoards. There are a
few collections of programs available on the internet with most still to
be re-discovered.
The ones I have seen are pretty cool looking in a
retro-future kind of way.
That's true, back then they 'looked' like a modern computer, more
than some of the other computers (which looked like the steel boxes they
were in). You can spot them as props in movies now and again (Star Trek
II, in Kirk's apartment).
They were fun, and they were pretty good even for their limitations.
If you are a fan of Commodore computers it is a nice addition to have
some PETs in the house. ;)
Also note that whois reports that efni.com is in
Canada. The machine
might not be in Australia.
Commodore was pretty big for a good while in other countries as they
had the foresight to start manufacturing plants internationally (Germany
was probably one of its largest). As far as shipping a PET it would
require a very sturdy box about the size needed for a 19" television and
would weigh 30 to 40 pounds.
--
Larry Anderson
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