Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:55:34 +0000 From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> Subject: Re: Commodore PET --------Reply: Well, recognizing that this was probably just flame bait, I respectfully disagree. Granted, with time there were problems with poor connectors and failing RAM & ROM chips, but that was common in systems of that day (and still is). In my not-so-humble opinion, the PET's metal case and automobile-style 'hood' ('bonnet' to you), hefty linear power supply, crisp built-in monitor, IEEE port, and its generous supply of other I/O ports, not to mention Commodore's good official support, made it stand out among the Apples and R-S model 1s of the day. Mine _is_ originally one of the blue-front models and it still works fine to this day; the only problems I've had with it is one of the ROMs developing a stuck bit and the occasional dirty connector, and the keyboard contacts need to be cleaned once in a while (and a little rust from Racoons peeing on it while it sat for many years in the garage with a hole in the roof). And, as an aside, it was many years before the mainstream reached the 500MB *per side* of the 8050 and 8250 disk drives (which could use pretty well any diskette you had on hand, soft sector, 10 or 16S hard sector, whatever). Archiving some 25+ year old diskettes recently I had one read error in 20 diskettes (and I could use the computer for playing a fast game or two while formatting or copying diskettes)... m