The PET 8000 series, also badged as CBM for Commodore Business Machines, included a new display chip which drove an 80×25 character screen. However, this resulted in a number of software incompatibilities with programs designed for the 40 column screen, and it appears to have been unpopular as a result. The machine shipped with 32 kB standard as the 8032, but allowed another 64 kB to be added externally. Later the upgrade was installed from the factory, creating the 8096. Unlike the 40-column models, 8000-series PETs came standard with a 1-channel speaker for sound generation.
Manufacturer | Commodore International (aka Commodore Business Machines) | CPU | MOS Technology 6502 @ 1 MHz |
Year Introduced | 1980 | RAM | 32KB, 64KB, 96KB |
Introductory Price | $1,500 (32KB) | Storage | Cassette (External) 5.25" Floppy Disk (170KB, via IEEE-488 interface) |
Additional Resources
Wikipedia | Commodore PET |
old-computers.com | CBM 80xx |
■ 1980 / Commodore / Last Updated May 24, 2017 by Curator /