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129-408: The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International . A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor , Commodore BASIC in read-only memory , keyboard, monochrome monitor, and, in early models, a cassette deck . Development of the system began in 1976, and it was demonstrated and sold as the first personal computer for

258-433: A PC speaker -class beeper, PETs did not have sound hardware (except for the 8000 models), but it was possible to rig a circuit (attributed to Hal Chamberlin ) up to the 6522 "user" port that could be used to output square wave tones to an external amplifier, and some games supported this feature. The PET had two empty sockets on the motherboard for adding expansion ROMs, which could be a total of 8K in size. A predecessor to

387-442: A TV set or an appropriately sized computer display , and is often used as a digital photo viewer, music and video player, TV receiver, and digital video recorder. HTPCs are also referred to as media center systems or media servers . The goal is to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into one box. HTPCs can also connect to services providing on-demand movies and TV shows. HTPCs can be purchased pre-configured with

516-401: A kit form and in limited volumes, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians. Minimal programming was done with toggle switches to enter instructions, and output was provided by front panel lamps. Practical use required adding peripherals such as keyboards, computer displays , disk drives , and printers . Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit microcomputer based on

645-511: A multitasking operating system . Eventually, due to the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market , personal computers and home computers lost any technical distinction. Business computers acquired color graphics capability and sound, and home computers and game systems users used the same processors and operating systems as office workers. Mass-market computers had graphics capabilities and memory comparable to dedicated workstations of

774-553: A portable computer prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a Philips compact cassette drive, small CRT , and full function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer in order to run APL/1130. In 1973, APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC . Because SCAMP

903-469: A touchscreen display, which can be controlled using either a stylus pen or finger. Some tablets may use a hybrid or convertible design, offering a keyboard that can either be removed as an attachment, or a screen that can be rotated and folded directly over top the keyboard. Some tablets may use desktop-PC operating system such as Windows or Linux, or may run an operating system designed primarily for tablets. Many tablet computers have USB ports, to which

1032-520: A " chiclet keyboard " because the keys resembled the chewing gum it was named after. The key tops also tended to rub off easily. Reliability was fairly poor, although that was common in many early microcomputers. Because of the poor keyboard on the PET, external replacement ones quickly appeared. The PET had somewhat of a competitive advantage over its Apple II and TRS-80 rivals as both were using relatively primitive integer BASICs for their first six months on

1161-544: A "smart terminal" as well, so this single machine could replace many of the boxes currently in use at the university. Additionally this machine became a remote development environment where the user could later upload their creation to a mainframe after completing development and testing on the SuperPET. In 1982, Commodore retired the PET line with the intention of replacing it with the B-series machines; however, they were

1290-416: A 1541 drive except for the back sporting an IEEE-488 connector instead of the two IEC DIN connectors . Of the previously extensive PET disk drive line, the only drives that returned were the 2031-LP and SFD-1001 (basically a 2040 and an 8250 repackaged in a 1541-style case with half-height drive mechanisms). The resurrected PET was sold through 1986 and then finally retired for good, having been superseded by

1419-835: A 4096-color palette, stereo sound, Motorola 68000 CPU, 256 KB RAM, and 880 KB 3.5-inch disk drive, for US$ 1,295. IBM's first PC was introduced on 12 August 1981 setting what became a mass market standard for PC architecture. In 1982 The Computer was named Machine of the Year by Time magazine. Somewhat larger and more expensive systems were aimed at office and small business use. These often featured 80-column text displays but might not have had graphics or sound capabilities. These microprocessor-based systems were still less costly than time-shared mainframes or minicomputers. Workstations were characterized by high-performance processors and graphics displays, with large-capacity local disk storage, networking capability, and running under

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1548-508: A TDA 1170 chip was used in place of the original analog circuit so that if no sync went to the monitor, it would merely be shut off rather than send spurious signals. The PET 2001 and 2001-8N had a register that would disable the video output; this was also used as output for the IEEE-488 interface, so screen flicker would occur during disk drive or printer use. It also became a popular method of producing explosion effects in games, but because

1677-410: A computer that could fit on a desk was remarkably small, leading to the desktop nomenclature. More recently, the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case . Desktop computers come in a variety of styles ranging from large vertical tower cases to small models which can be tucked behind or rest directly beneath (and support) LCD monitors . While the term desktop often refers to

1806-557: A computer with a vertically aligned computer tower case , these varieties often rest on the ground or underneath desks. Despite this seeming contradiction, the term desktop does typically refer to these vertical tower cases as well as the horizontally aligned models which are designed to literally rest on top of desks and are therefore more appropriate to the desktop term, although both types qualify for this desktop label in most practical situations aside from certain physical arrangement differences. Both styles of these computer cases hold

1935-556: A demonstration of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak 's Apple II prototype. Steve Jobs was offering to sell it to Commodore, but Commodore considered Jobs' offer too expensive. The Commodore PET was officially announced in 1976 and Jack Tramiel gave Chuck Peddle six months to have the computer ready for the January 1977 Consumer Electronics Show , with his team including John Feagans, Bill Seiler, two Japanese engineers named Fujiyama and Aoji, and Jack's son Leonard Tramiel, who helped design

2064-510: A desk, including a keyboard, a small one-line display, and printer. The Wang 2200 microcomputer of 1973 had a full-size cathode ray tube (CRT) and cassette tape storage. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific uses. 1974 saw the introduction of what is considered by many to be the first true personal computer, the Altair 8800 created by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) . Based on

2193-630: A different fashion than the 8096. While on the 8096, the expansion RAM cannot be accessed at all without switching out the OS ROMs and video RAM, the 8296 has a setup closer to that of the Commodore 64 where writing to the memory locations with the OS ROMs accesses the RAM underneath, but reading from those locations will read back the ROMs instead. The 8296 also differs from the 8096 in that it has jumpers on

2322-511: A different video controller than the 2001/3000 models. This created a notorious compatibility problem known as the killer poke . On 2001/3000 PETs, there was a register which when enabled did not allow reading/writing of the video RAM except during the vertical blanking in order to prevent snow on the screen, caused by the CPU and video controller trying to access the VRAM at the same time. This feature

2451-415: A few years before. Even local area networking, originally a way to allow business computers to share expensive mass storage and peripherals, became a standard feature of personal computers used at home. An increasingly important set of uses for personal computers relied on the ability of the computer to communicate with other computer systems, allowing interchange of information. Experimental public access to

2580-432: A graphics card installed. For this reason, desktop computers are usually preferred over laptops for gaming purposes. Unlike desktop computers, only minor internal upgrades (such as memory and hard disk drive) are feasible owing to the limited space and power available. Laptops have the same input and output ports as desktops, for connecting to external displays, mice, cameras, storage devices and keyboards. Laptops are also

2709-490: A hardware specification called Handheld PC was later released by Microsoft that run the Windows CE operating system. Monochrome monitor A monochrome monitor is a type of computer monitor in which computer text and images are displayed in varying tones of only one color, as opposed to a color monitor that can display text and images in multiple colors. They were very common in the early days of computing, from

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2838-438: A hinged second panel containing a flat display screen. Closing the laptop protects the screen and keyboard during transportation. Laptops generally have a rechargeable battery , enhancing their portability. To save power, weight and space, laptop graphics chips are in many cases integrated into the CPU or chipset and use system RAM, resulting in reduced graphics performance when compared to desktop machines, that more typically have

2967-408: A keyboard or mouse can be connected. Smartphones are often similar to tablet computers , the difference being that smartphones always have cellular integration. They are generally smaller than tablets, and may not have a slate form factor. The ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) is a small tablet computer . It was developed by Microsoft , Intel and Samsung , among others. Current UMPCs typically feature

3096-540: A larger screen or use with video projectors. IBM PC-compatible suitcase format computers became available soon after the introduction of the PC, with the Compaq Portable being a leading example of the type. Later models included a hard drive to give roughly equivalent performance to contemporary desktop computers. The development of thin plasma display and LCD screens permitted a somewhat smaller form factor, called

3225-465: A little more expensive compared to desktops, as the miniaturized components for laptops themselves are expensive. Notebook computers such as the TRS-80 Model 100 and Epson HX-20 had roughly the plan dimensions of a sheet of typing paper ( ANSI A or ISO A4 ). These machines had a keyboard with slightly reduced dimensions compared to a desktop system, and a fixed LCD display screen coplanar with

3354-424: A lower total cost of production. These companies began to undercut TI business, so TI responded by entering the calculator market directly in 1975. As a result, TI was selling complete calculators at lower price points than they sold just the chipset to their former customers, and the industry that had built up around it was frozen out of the market. Commodore initially responded by beginning their own attempt to form

3483-496: A marketplace flop and also very expensive to manufacture. Because Commodore still had a strong business software market in Europe, the 80xx series PET was revived during 1984 in a new molded plastic case with a swivel monitor. Four models were offered, the 8032SK, 8096SK, and the new 8296 and 8296-D. The 8296 models had 128K of memory (96K on the expansion memory board) and the 8296-D had two internal half-height 8250 drives. In addition,

3612-739: A microprocessor, the Intel 8008 . It was built starting in 1972, and a few hundred units were sold. This had been preceded by the Datapoint 2200 in 1970, for which the Intel 8008 had been commissioned, though not accepted for use. The CPU design implemented in the Datapoint 2200 became the basis for x86 architecture used in the original IBM PC and its descendants. In 1973, the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed

3741-481: A new naming scheme: devices without an integrated phone are called Windows Mobile Classic instead of Pocket PC, while devices with an integrated phone and a touch screen are called Windows Mobile Professional. Palmtop PCs were miniature pocket-sized computers running DOS that first came about in the late 1980s, typically in a clamshell form factor with a keyboard. Non-x86 based devices were often called palmtop computers, examples being Psion Series 3 . In later years

3870-467: A number of programming languages including a BASIC in ROM for the 6502 and a separate ANSI Minimal BASIC-compatible BASIC for the 6809, along with APL , COBOL , FORTRAN , Pascal and a 6809 assembler on floppies. It also included microEDITOR, a text editor for use in writing and maintaining programs for any of the 6809 languages. Also included was a terminal program which allowed the machine to be used as

3999-462: A one byte sector–header size difference makes the formats write-incompatible). 8050 and 8250 drives had an incompatible higher density 500 KB / 1 MB format, but were popular well into the 1980s as server/ BBS storage devices because of their large capacity. In addition, Commodore had 8-inch 8060, 8061, 8062, and 8280 drives which used MFM encoding instead of the GCR used on their other disk drives and

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4128-406: A preview of features that would later become staples of personal computers: e-mail , hypertext , word processing , video conferencing , and the mouse . The demonstration required technical support staff and a mainframe time-sharing computer that were far too costly for individual business use at the time. Early personal computers‍—‌generally called microcomputers‍—‌were often sold in

4257-460: A programming point of view, this was a relatively simple method of producing good-looking graphics, which used negligibly more RAM than a standard character display, and significantly less RAM than bitmap graphics. The PET's lack of a remappable character set is a major weakness in the machine's design. Somewhat offsetting this drawback, the PET's ROM-restricted character set – an ASCII-1963 deviation known as PETSCII  –

4386-615: A shared mainframe computer system was demonstrated as early as 1973 in the Community Memory project, but bulletin board systems and online service providers became more commonly available after 1978. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s, giving public access to the rapidly growing network. In 1991, the World Wide Web was made available for public use. The combination of powerful personal computers with high-resolution graphics and sound, with

4515-411: A standard feature on the 8096. A register at $ FFF0 is used to set the RAM configuration. The extra RAM is banked in four 16K blocks, the first two blocks are switched into $ 8000 – $ BFFF and the second two in $ C000 – $ FFFF . Normally, banking in the expansion RAM will swap out the video RAM, I/O registers, and system ROMs, so interrupts must be turned off first, but it is also possible to set

4644-655: A television already in the home as the computer display, with low-detail blocky graphics and a limited color range, and text about 40 characters wide by 25 characters tall. Sinclair Research , a UK company, produced the ZX Series‍—;‌the ZX80 (1980), ZX81 (1981), and the ZX Spectrum ; the latter was introduced in 1982, and totaled 8 million unit sold. Following came the Commodore 64 , totaled 17 million units sold,

4773-406: A time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems . Workstations are used for tasks such as computer-aided design , drafting and modeling, computation-intensive scientific and engineering calculations, image processing, architectural modeling, and computer graphics for animation and motion picture visual effects. Before the widespread use of PCs,

4902-465: A variation on the PET called "Teacher's PET" – these were relabeled 2001-series PETs which were donated by Commodore as part of a "buy 2, get 1 free" program offered to schools as part of a promotion/ tax write-off scheme. Two more machines were released in the PET series. The 8000 series included a new display chip which drove an 80×25 character screen, but this resulted in a number of software incompatibilities with programs designed for

5031-600: A vertically integrated calculator line as well, purchasing a vendor in California that was working on a competitive CMOS calculator chip and an LED production line. They also went looking for a company with an existing calculator chip line, something to tide them over in the immediate term, and this led them to MOS Technology . MOS had been building calculator chips for some time, but more recently had begun to branch out into new markets with its 6502 microprocessor design, which they were trying to bring to market. Along with

5160-590: A video controller based on the Motorola 6845 CRTC chip (unlike the TTL logic circuit in 2001/3000s/early 4000s) that eliminated the snow problem, but also placed a CRT control register in place of where the VBLANK flag had been on the 2001/3000. BASIC programs intended for the 2001/3000 thus had to be modified in order to run safely on 12-inch PETs. Later machines had modified video circuitry to prevent killer poke damage;

5289-546: A wide range of users, not just experienced electronics hobbyists who had the soldering skills to assemble a computer kit. The Apple I as delivered was still technically a kit computer, as it did not have a power supply, case, or keyboard when it was delivered to the Byte Shop. The first successfully mass-marketed personal computer to be announced was the Commodore PET after being revealed in January 1977. However, it

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5418-542: Is a desktop computer that generally comprises a high-performance video card , processor and RAM, to improve the speed and responsiveness of demanding video games . An all-in-one computer (also known as single-unit PCs) is a desktop computer that combines the monitor and processor within a single unit. A separate keyboard and mouse are standard input devices, with some monitors including touchscreen capability. The processor and other working components are typically reduced in size relative to standard desktops, located behind

5547-495: Is a portable computer that provides the full capabilities of a desktop computer . Such computers are currently large laptops. This class of computers usually includes more powerful components and a larger display than generally found in smaller portable computers, and may have limited battery capacity or no battery. Netbooks , also called mini notebooks or subnotebooks , were a subgroup of laptops suited for general computing tasks and accessing web-based applications . Initially,

5676-484: Is because a monochrome monitor is made up of a continuous coating of phosphor and the sharpness can be controlled by focusing the electron beam; whereas on a color monitor, screen space is divided into triads of three phosphor dots (one red, one blue, one green) separated by a mask. The effective resolution of a color monitor is limited by the density of these triads. Furthermore, pixels in the source image will not align precisely to these triads, so moire effects will occur as

5805-416: Is deliberate on some monitors, known as "long persistence" monitors. These use the relatively long decay period of the phosphor glow to reduce flickering and eye strain. The colour scheme, grid layout of characters, and ghosting effects of the now-obsolete monochrome CRT screens have become an eye-catching visual shorthand for computer-generated text, frequently in "futuristic" settings. The opening titles of

5934-585: Is speculation and there is no sign of it so far. In the history of computing , early experimental machines could be operated by a single attendant. For example, ENIAC which became operational in 1946 could be run by a single, albeit highly trained, person. This mode pre-dated the batch programming, or time-sharing modes with multiple users connected through terminals to mainframe computers. Computers intended for laboratory, instrumentation, or engineering purposes were built, and could be operated by one person in an interactive fashion. Examples include such systems as

6063-478: Is used to contrast with Mac, an Apple Macintosh computer. Since none of these Apple products were mainframes or time-sharing systems, they were all personal computers but not PC (brand) computers. In 1995, a CBS segment on the growing popularity of PC reported: "For many newcomers PC stands for Pain and Confusion." The "brain" [computer] may one day come down to our level [of the common people] and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this

6192-529: The Amiga , one of their conditions was that Commodore credit the original authors of BASIC, so BASIC 7.0 on the Commodore 128 displayed a Microsoft copyright notice). This feature was present in all 30xx series PETs. Commodore executives were unhappy when they learned about it and it was removed from BASIC on all subsequent Commodore machines. Microsoft also remained sensitive about their copyrighted code and pressured Commodore to not release any BASIC code listings to

6321-536: The Apple I computer circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The Apple I computer differed from the other kit-style hobby computers of era. At the request of Paul Terrell , owner of the Byte Shop , Jobs and Wozniak were given their first purchase order, for 50 Apple I computers, only if the computers were assembled and tested and not a kit computer. Terrell wanted to have computers to sell to

6450-656: The Apple II (which shipped in June 1977), Atari 400/800 (1979), and, in particular, Commodore's own bestselling VIC-20 (1980/81). Commodore released a High Resolution Graphic board for the PET using the Thomson EF936x graphics chip with a resolution of 512×512 pixels. In addition, the Apple II, TRS-80 Model I , and Atari 400 (via 3rd party expansions)/800 could all be expanded to a maximum of 48 KB of RAM while

6579-590: The Bendix G15 and LGP-30 of 1956, and the Soviet MIR series of computers developed from 1965 to 1969. By the early 1970s, people in academic or research institutions had the opportunity for single-person use of a computer system in interactive mode for extended durations, although these systems would still have been too expensive to be owned by a single person. The personal computer was made possible by major advances in semiconductor technology. In 1959,

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6708-583: The Commodore 128 , 1571 , and 1581 . Although not officially a member of the PET series, in 1983 Commodore packaged C64 motherboards in plastic cases similar to the PET 4000-series in order to create the Educator 64 . This was an attempt to retake some of the education market they had largely lost by then to the Apple IIe . In the home computer market, the PET line was soon outsold by machines that supported high-resolution color graphics and sound, mainly

6837-656: The Galaksija (1983) introduced in Yugoslavia and the Amstrad CPC series (464–6128). In the same year, the NEC PC-98 was introduced, which was a very popular personal computer that sold in more than 18 million units. Another famous personal computer, the revolutionary Amiga 1000 , was unveiled by Commodore on 23 July 1985. The Amiga 1000 featured a multitasking, windowing operating system, color graphics with

6966-780: The NeXT MegaPixel Display . Monochrome monitors are commonly available in three colors: if the P1 phosphor is used, the screen is green monochrome. If the P3 phosphor is used, the screen is amber monochrome. If the P4 phosphor is used, the screen is white monochrome (known as "page white"); this is the same phosphor as used in early television sets. An amber screen was claimed to give improved ergonomics, specifically by reducing eye strain; this claim appears to have little scientific basis. Well-known examples of early monochrome monitors are

7095-476: The PETSCII graphic characters and acted as quality control. The result was Commodore's first mass-market personal computer, the PET, the first model of which was the PET 2001. Its 6502 processor controlled the screen, keyboard, cassette tape recorders and any peripherals connected to one of the computer's several expansion ports. The PET 2001 included either 4 KB (2001-4) or 8 KB (2001-8) of 8-bit RAM , and

7224-873: The VT100 from Digital Equipment Corporation , released in 1978, the Apple Monitor III in 1980, and the IBM 5151 , which accompanied the IBM PC model 5150 upon its 1981 release. The 5151 was designed to work with the PC's Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) text-only graphics card , but the third-party Hercules Graphics Card became a popular companion to the 5151 screen because of the Hercules' comparatively high-resolution bitmapped 720×348 pixel monochrome graphics capability, much used for business presentation graphics generated from spreadsheets like Lotus 1-2-3 . This

7353-405: The lunchbox computer. The screen formed one side of the enclosure, with a detachable keyboard and one or two half-height floppy disk drives, mounted facing the ends of the computer. Some variations included a battery, allowing operation away from AC outlets. A laptop computer is designed for portability with clamshell design, where the keyboard and computer components are on one panel, with

7482-556: The macOS operating system), and free and open-source , Unix-like operating systems, such as Linux . Other notable platforms until the 1990s were the Amiga from Commodore , and the PC-98 from NEC . The term PC is an initialism for personal computer. While the IBM Personal Computer incorporated the designation into its model name, the term originally described personal computers of any brand. In some contexts, PC

7611-460: The silicon integrated circuit (IC) chip was developed by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor , and the metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) transistor was developed by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs . The MOS integrated circuit was commercialized by RCA in 1964, and then the silicon-gate MOS integrated circuit was developed by Federico Faggin at Fairchild in 1968. Faggin later used silicon-gate MOS technology to develop

7740-661: The "1977 trinity". Mass-market, ready-assembled computers had arrived, and allowed a wider range of people to use computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware. In 1977 the Heath company introduced personal computer kits known as Heathkits , starting with the Heathkit H8 , followed by the Heathkit H89 in late 1979. With the purchase of the Heathkit H8 you would obtain

7869-444: The 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with computers. While personal computer users may develop their applications, usually these systems run commercial software , free-of-charge software (" freeware "), which is most often proprietary, or free and open-source software , which is provided in ready-to-run , or binary form. Software for personal computers is typically developed and distributed independently from

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7998-446: The 1960s through the 1980s, before color monitors became widely commercially available. They are still widely used in applications such as computerized cash register systems, owing to the age of many registers. Green screen was the common name for a monochrome monitor using a green "P1" phosphor screen; the term is often misused to refer to any block mode display terminal, regardless of color, e.g., IBM 3279 , 3290 . Abundant in

8127-405: The 2001-N (the N was short for "New"). The new machine used a standard green- phosphor monitor in place of the white in the original 2001. It now had a conventional, full-sized keyboard and no longer sported the built-in cassette recorder. The kernel ROM was upgraded to add support for Commodore's newly introduced disk drive line. It was offered in 8 KB, 16 KB, or 32 KB models as

8256-467: The 2001-N-8, the 3008 was quickly dropped. Later PET 3000 series machines switched to the BASIC 4.0 ROMs. In 1980, the 4000-series PETs were launched. These included the enhanced BASIC 4.0, which added commands for disk functions and significantly improved garbage cleanup. By this point, Commodore discovered that people were buying cheaper 8 KB and 16 KB models of the 3000-series and upgrading

8385-416: The 2001-N8, 2001-N16, and 2001-N32 (the 8 KB models were dropped soon after introduction). The 2001-N switched to using conventional DRAM instead of the 6550 (1kx4) SRAM in the original model. PET 2001-8Ns had eight 2108 (8kx1) DRAMs and 2001-16Ns used sixteen 2108s. The PET 4016 used eight 4116 (16kx1) chips. All 32K PETs used sixteen 4116 chips. Finally, Commodore added a machine-language monitor to

8514-444: The 40 column screen, and it appears to have been unpopular as a result. Unlike the 30xx series, the 40xx and 80xx PETs came standard with a 1-channel speaker for sound generation. 2001/3000 and 4000-series PETs used what became known as the "graphics keyboard". Numbers were exclusively on the numeric keypad and the row above the alphabet keys had only punctuation symbols. The 3032 and 4032 were produced in two special variants known as

8643-496: The 6502 came Chuck Peddle 's KIM-1 design (short for "Keyboard Input Monitor") in January of 1976, a small computer kit based on the 6502. At Commodore, Peddle had long dreamed of making computers and convinced Jack Tramiel that calculators were a dead-end and that Commodore should explore the burgeoning microcomputer market instead. At first, they considered purchasing an existing design, and in September 1976 Peddle asked for

8772-555: The 8-bit Intel 8080 Microprocessor, the Altair is widely recognized as the spark that ignited the microcomputer revolution as the first commercially successful personal computer. The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in the form of the S-100 bus , and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC . In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold

8901-477: The 8096, the video RAM and I/O registers can be set to "peek" through. The motherboard also sported "user" jumpers which "connected" the RAM banking to the user port, these required soldering to enable. If connected, the user port could be used to adjust the upper memory configuration via software. The IEEE-488–based PET disk drive line was also updated; the large, heavy metal-cased drives were replaced by smaller units in 1541 cases; they looked almost identical to

9030-446: The 8296 came bundled with an office suite on disk and the system ROMs included a menu program to launch each of its four applications. Early units contained leftover 8032/96 PCBs in order to get rid of remaining stock; after these were used up, Commodore equipped the machines with a new PCB that replaced the old triple-voltage 4116 DRAMs with more modern types. The 8296 had a completely redesigned motherboard and handled expansion RAM in

9159-405: The B models with the so-called "business keyboard", which had a conventional layout with mathematical symbols and numbers above the alphabet keys. The keypad contained only numerals. On the other hand, all 8000-series PETs sported the business layout. Entering graphics symbols on PETs with the business keyboard proved something of a challenge since they could not be directly typed out and usually it

9288-528: The PCB to select the power-on memory configuration for $ 8000 - $ FFFF . The factory default configuration was to have the I/O registers, video RAM, and ROMs occupying $ 8000 – $ FFFF . When operating from BASIC, the machine would be nearly indistinguishable from an 8032. By setting the jumpers, one could swap out any 8K region of upper memory for RAM, and it was even possible to have everything switched out and convert

9417-473: The PET 2001/3000, but in 1981 this was replaced by the 12-inch screen and 6845-based CRTC hardware. The PET's simple, rugged design and completely enclosed components made it an early favorite in the North American education market. Schools preferred the 40-column models because the 40-column display's larger characters vs. the 80xx PETs were easier for young children to read. Commodore manufactured

9546-509: The PET was limited to 32 KB. Without the High Resolution Graphic board, the PET's graphics capabilities were limited to a character set hardwired in ROM , similar to the Apple II in text mode. On many of the PET range's home computer rivals, the look-up address of the character graphics could be changed and pointed to RAM , where new characters could be defined by a programmer to create custom graphics shapes. From

9675-547: The PET were the single-unit 2031 and dual-unit 2040, 3040. Then followed the 4040, 8050, and 8250. Later (near the end of the PET's lifespan), single-unit 2031 and SFD-1001 drives were produced that used the same case as the 1540/1541, but sported the PET's parallel interface instead of the VIC-20/C64 IEC serial interface. The 4040/2031 used the same 170 KB format as the 1541 and is read compatible (although software that performs low-level drive access will not work, and

9804-423: The RAM rather than paying extra for the 32 KB model. Because of this, they punched out the memory sockets in the 4008 and 4016 to prevent that practice. The 4032 was a major success in schools, where its tough all-metal construction and all-in-one design made it better able to stand up to the rigors of classroom use. Just as important in this role was the PET's otherwise underutilized IEEE-488 port. Used wisely,

9933-447: The US market in part because the 6502-based PETs could not run CP/M , which had become the standard for business software. In addition, the PET's 32 KB of memory was a disadvantage against the Apple II and TRS-80, both of which could accommodate 48 KB . The 8000-series PETs had a motherboard connector for a daughterboard that added an additional 64K of RAM for 96K total; this was

10062-549: The Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Linux operating system , and low-voltage Intel Atom or VIA C7-M processors. A pocket PC is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer ( personal digital assistant , PDA) that runs the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system . It may have the capability to run an alternative operating system like NetBSD or Linux . Pocket PCs have many of

10191-473: The ability to be programmed in both APL and BASIC for engineers, analysts, statisticians, and other business problem-solvers. In the late 1960s such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton. Another desktop portable APL machine, the MCM/70 , was demonstrated in 1973 and shipped in 1974. It used the Intel 8008 processor. A seminal step in personal computing

10320-425: The ability to vary the brightness of individual pixels , thereby creating the illusion of depth and color, exactly like a black-and-white television. Typically, only a limited set of brightness levels was provided to save display memory which was very expensive in the '70s and '80s. Either normal/bright or normal/dim (1 bit) per character as in the VT100 or black, dark gray, light gray, white (2bit) per pixel like

10449-477: The capabilities of desktop PCs . Numerous applications are available for handhelds adhering to the Microsoft Pocket PC specification, many of which are freeware . Microsoft-compliant Pocket PCs can also be used with many other add-ons like GPS receivers , barcode readers, RFID readers and cameras. In 2007, with the release of Windows Mobile 6, Microsoft dropped the name Pocket PC in favor of

10578-479: The cartridge slots on later Commodore machines, they allowed various software add-ons such as machine language monitors. In addition, it was common for commercial programs to include a copy protection ROM that had to be installed prior to running the application; something of an inconvenience to users owning multiple applications protected in this way, as the chips would have to be swapped in order to run their respective programs. The original lineup of disk drives for

10707-482: The characters very clear and sharply defined (thus easy to read) but generating an afterglow-effect (sometimes called a "ghost image") when the text scrolled down the screen or when a screenful of information was quickly replaced with another as in word processing page up/down operations. Other green screens avoided the heavy afterglow-effects, but at the cost of much more pixelated character images. The 5151, amongst others, had brightness and contrast controls to allow

10836-577: The chassis and CPU card to assemble yourself, additional hardware such as the H8-1 memory board that contained 4k of RAM could also be purchased in order to run software. The Heathkit H11 model was released in 1978 and was one of the first 16-bit personal computers; however, due to its high retail cost of $ 1,295 was discontinued in 1982. During the early 1980s, home computers were further developed for household use, with software for personal productivity, programming and games. They typically could be used with

10965-443: The choice of either mixed-case characters, or uppercase with graphics; either could also be displayed as a reverse field, negative image. For specialized applications, alternative character sets could be programmed into an EPROM inserted in the character set ROM socket. Alternative character set EPROMs with diacritics and mathematical symbols were available in the aftermarket. A 2001-8B model with katakana keyboard and character set

11094-443: The computer). On the original PET 2001, the uppercase/graphics character set and upper/lowercase character set were reversed compared to how they would be on later machines; PET owners who upgraded their machines to the BASIC 2.0 ROMs often also swapped out the character ROMs for the newer version. Although the machine was moderately successful, there were frequent complaints about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, often referred to as

11223-645: The early-to-mid-1980s, they succeeded Teletype terminals and preceded color CRTs and later LCDs as the predominant visual output device for computers. The most common technology for monochrome monitors was the CRT , although, e.g., plasma displays , were also used. Unlike color monitors, which display text and graphics in multiple colors through the use of alternating-intensity red, green, and blue phosphors , monochrome monitors have only one color of phosphor ( mono means "one", and chrome means "color"). All text and graphics are displayed in that color. Some monitors have

11352-478: The entire $ 8000 – $ FFFF to RAM, although such a machine would be useless with no I/O or system ROMs accessible. Like with the 8096, the user could also manipulate the register at $ FFF0 to control which RAM banks occupied upper memory. The 8296's RAM is banked in 16K chunks like the 8096, although since it has 128K, there are six possible banks instead of four, three that can go into $ 8000 – $ BFFF and three that can go into $ C000 – $ FFFF , and like with

11481-556: The first Ghost in the Shell film and the digital rain effect of the Matrix trilogy science fiction films prominently feature computer displays with ghosting green text. A similar grid of amber text is used in the science fiction TV show Travelers . A free application for Linux terminal software called "Cool Retro Term" is available to accurately emulate old CRT Monochrome terminals for nostalgia or retrocomputing reasons. There

11610-479: The first single-chip microprocessor , the Intel 4004 , in 1971. The first microcomputers , based on microprocessors, were developed during the early 1970s. Widespread commercial availability of microprocessors, from the mid-1970s onwards, made computers cheap enough for small businesses and individuals to own. In what was later to be called the Mother of All Demos , SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart in 1968 gave

11739-399: The hardware or operating system manufacturers. Many personal computer users no longer need to write their programs to make any use of a personal computer, although end-user programming is still feasible. This contrasts with mobile systems, where software is often available only through a manufacturer-supported channel, and end-user program development may be discouraged by lack of support by

11868-422: The image resolution approaches the limit imposed by the size of the phosphor triads. Monochrome monitors were used in almost all dumb terminals and were widely used in text-based applications such as computerized cash registers and point of sale systems because of their superior sharpness and enhanced readability. Some green screen displays were furnished with a particularly full/intense phosphor coating, making

11997-556: The infrastructure provided by the Internet, and the standardization of access methods of the Web browsers , established the foundation for a significant fraction of modern life, from bus time tables through unlimited distribution of free videos through to online user-edited encyclopedias. A workstation is a high-end personal computer designed for technical, mathematical, or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at

12126-519: The introduction of the IBM PC, portable computers consisting of a processor, display, disk drives and keyboard, in a suit-case style portable housing, allowed users to bring a computer home from the office or to take notes at a classroom. Examples include the Osborne 1 and Kaypro ; and the Commodore SX-64 . These machines were AC-powered and included a small CRT display screen. The form factor

12255-423: The kernal contained screen editor functions (the screen editor on 80 column PETs differed from 40-column models) with the second half containing a number of function calls for tasks such as inputting and outputting data to and from different I/O devices, reading the keyboard, and positioning the cursor. In addition, the kernal ROM received system interrupts and scanned the keyboard. The kernel, an idea of John Feagans,

12384-460: The kernel ROM that could be accessed by jumping to any memory location with a BRK instruction. It did not include a built-in assembler and required the user to enter hexadecimal numbers for coding. Commodore contacted Microsoft to upgrade BASIC for the new machines; this resulted in the soon-to-be-familiar BASIC 2.0 which removed the 256 element array limitation and had a rearranged zero page . Most bugs were fixed and IEEE-488 support in BASIC

12513-549: The keyboard. These displays were usually small, with 8 to 16 lines of text, sometimes only 40 columns line length. However, these machines could operate for extended times on disposable or rechargeable batteries. Although they did not usually include internal disk drives, this form factor often included a modem for telephone communication and often had provisions for external cassette or disk storage. Later, clamshell format laptop computers with similar small plan dimensions were also called notebooks . A desktop replacement computer

12642-458: The manufacturer. Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems (first with MS-DOS and then with Windows ) and Intel hardware – collectively called Wintel – have dominated the personal computer market, and today the term PC normally refers to the ubiquitous Wintel platform. Alternatives to Windows occupy a minority share of the market; these include the Mac platform from Apple (running

12771-426: The market while the PET had a full-featured BASIC with floating-point support , a sophisticated screen editor, and lowercase letters, the last being a feature that the two competing platforms would not have for a few years. On the other hand, Commodore were a year behind Apple and Tandy in making disk drives available for their computers. In 1979, Commodore replaced the original PET 2001 with an improved model known as

12900-513: The masses at the January 1977 Consumer Electronics Show . The name "PET" was suggested by Andre Souson after he saw the Pet Rock in Los Gatos , and stated they were going to make the "pet computer". It was backronymed to Personal Electronic Transactor . Byte referred to the PET, Apple II and Tandy TRS-80 collectively as the "1977 trinity". Following the initial PET 2001, the design

13029-455: The monitor, and configured similarly to laptops. A nettop computer was introduced by Intel in February 2008, characterized by low cost and lean functionality. These were intended to be used with an Internet connection to run Web browsers and Internet applications. A Home theater PC (HTPC) combines the functions of a personal computer and a digital video recorder . It is connected to

13158-404: The port could be used as a simple local area network and allowed printers and disk drives (which were then very expensive) to be shared among all of the machines in the classroom. Unlike later Commodore machines, PETs had no kernel ROM functions for the IEEE-488 port and users had to write their own to use peripherals such as modems. First year 4000-series PETs retained the same video hardware as

13287-503: The primary defining characteristic of netbooks was the lack of an optical disc drive, smaller size, and lower performance than full-size laptops. By mid-2009 netbooks had been offered to users "free of charge", with an extended service contract purchase of a cellular data plan. Ultrabooks and Chromebooks have since filled the gap left by Netbooks. Unlike the generic Netbook name, Ultrabook and Chromebook are technically both specifications by Intel and Google respectively. A tablet uses

13416-454: The public, although user groups eventually made disassemblies of BASIC. Sales of the newer machines were strong, and Commodore then introduced the models to Europe. However, Philips owned a competing trademark on the PET name, so these models were renamed. The result was the CBM 3000 series ('CBM' standing for Commodore Business Machines), which included the 3008 , 3016 and 3032 models. Like

13545-498: The required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, or can be assembled from components. Keyboard computers are computers inside of keyboards, generally still designed to be connected to an external computer monitor or television . Examples include the Atari ST , Amstrad CPC , BBC Micro , Commodore 64 , MSX , Raspberry Pi 400 , and the ZX Spectrum . The potential utility of portable computers

13674-511: The screen flickered while using the IEEE-488 port, the 16K and 32K models had this feature removed. The last in the series was the SP9000, known as the SuperPET or MicroMainframe. This machine was designed at the University of Waterloo for teaching programming. In addition to the basic CBM 8000 hardware, the 9000 added a second CPU in the form of the Motorola 6809 , more RAM and included

13803-418: The systems hardware components such as the motherboard , processor chip and other internal operating parts. Desktop computers have an external monitor with a display screen and an external keyboard, which are plugged into ports on the back of the computer case. Desktop computers are popular for home and business computing applications as they leave space on the desk for multiple monitors . A gaming computer

13932-424: The user to set their own compromise. Monochrome monitors are particularly susceptible to screen burn (hence the advent, and name, of the screensaver ), because the phosphors used are of very high intensity. Another effect of the high-intensity phosphors is an effect known as "ghosting", wherein a dim afterglow of the screen's contents is briefly visible after the screen has been blanked. This ghosting effect

14061-463: The video RAM and I/O registers to "peek" through. Regardless, switching the OS ROMs out will require the user to either have interrupts disabled or supply their own interrupt handler. The expansion RAM cannot be seen by BASIC and machines equipped with the RAM board will still report the standard 31,743 bytes free on power up. A relatively small amount of software could utilize it. As noted above, 8000-series PETs (and later 4000s) used larger monitors and

14190-484: Was 1500 baud , but the data was recorded to tape twice for safety, giving an effective rate of 750 baud. The computer's main board carried four expansion ports: extra memory, a second cassette tape recorder interface, a parallel ("user") port which could be used for sound output or connection to "user" projects or non-Commodore devices and a parallel IEEE-488 port which allowed for daisy-chaining peripherals such as disk drives and printers. A working PET 2001 prototype

14319-460: Was apparent early on. Alan Kay described the Dynabook in 1972, but no hardware was developed. The Xerox NoteTaker was produced in a very small experimental batch around 1978. In 1975, the IBM 5100 could be fit into a transport case, making it a portable computer, but it weighed about 50 pounds. Such early portable computers were termed luggables by journalists owing to their heft. Before

14448-586: Was back-ordered and not available until later that year. Three months later (April), the Apple II (usually referred to as the Apple) was announced with the first units being shipped 10 June 1977, and the TRS-80 from Tandy Corporation / Tandy Radio Shack following in August 1977, which sold over 100,000 units during its lifetime. Together, especially in the North American market, these 3 machines were referred to as

14577-452: Was broken, so that when Commodore later came out with disk drives, they could not be used from BASIC (although the kernel routines supported them), and only supported 256 array elements. The PEEK function would not work on memory locations above 49152 so as to prevent the user from viewing the copyrighted code in the system ROMs . Aside from the 8K BASIC ROM, the PET also included a 4K character ROM and an 8K kernal ROM. The first half of

14706-491: Was essentially a single-board computer with discrete logic driving a small built-in monochrome monitor with 40×25 character graphics, enclosed in a sheet metal case that reflected Commodore's background as a manufacturer of office equipment . The machine also included a built-in Datasette for data storage located on the front of the case, which left little room for the keyboard. The data transfer rate to cassette tape

14835-401: Was intended to allow these systems to be taken on board an airplane as carry-on baggage, though their high power demand meant that they could not be used in flight. The integrated CRT display made for a relatively heavy package, but these machines were more portable than their contemporary desktop equals. Some models had standard or optional connections to drive an external video monitor, allowing

14964-418: Was made to be functional. The PEEK function was unblocked for memory locations above 49152. BASIC 2.0 also included an easter egg that Bill Gates personally coded, which would cause "MICROSOFT!" to appear if the user typed WAIT 6502,x (x being the number of times to display the message); this was reportedly due to a dispute with Commodore over ownership of BASIC (years later, when Microsoft developed BASIC for

15093-655: Was mainly intended to allow PET users to read disks written on IBM mainframes/ minicomputers . 5 MB and 7.5 MB hard disks were produced as well. They have no sub-directory support and are treated as simply a larger floppy disk. All PET peripherals will work on VIC-20/C64/Plus-4/C128 machines with an IEEE-488 parallel to IEC serial adapter (reverse IEC serial to IEEE-488 parallel adapters were also made), and as mentioned above, using these adapters, 8050/8250 drives were sometimes used on C64s for BBS service because of their large capacity and faster interface. Personal computer Institutional or corporate computer owners in

15222-585: Was much higher resolution than the alternative IBM Color Graphics Adapter 320×200 pixel, or 640×200 pixel graphic standard. It could also run most programs written for the CGA card's standard graphics modes. Monochrome monitors continued to be used, even after the introduction of higher resolution color IBM Enhanced Graphics Adapter and Video Graphics Array standards in the late 1980s, for dual-monitor applications. Pixel for pixel, monochrome CRT monitors produce sharper text and images than color CRT monitors. This

15351-539: Was necessary to display them indirectly via a CHR$ function. The 4000/8000 PETs were more explicitly targeted at professional/business use than the 2001/3000. Business customers were the main target for the features of the enhanced BASIC 4.0, and a good selection of prepackaged business software was available. A large line of 5.25-inch and 8-inch floppy drives were made for the PET family, and even 5 and 7 MB external hard disks . While they became fairly popular for business use in Europe, they failed to make much impact on

15480-402: Was one of the most varied and flexible of the era. It allowed PET games with rudimentary graphics to be created, exemplified by clones of video games such as Space Invaders and Lunar Lander . The PETSCII character set was even flexible enough to allow for the creation of simple 3D games such as Labyrinth . This flexibility was achieved by the use of two switchable character sets, allowing

15609-580: Was saved by Apple's decision to license Microsoft BASIC for the Apple II line. The BASIC included on the original PET 2001 was known as Commodore BASIC 1.0; Microsoft supplied Commodore with a source listing for their 6502 BASIC, essentially a port of BASIC-80, and Commodore performed the rest of the work themselves, including changing the startup screen and prompts, adding I/O support, the SYS command for invoking machine language programs, and fixing bugs . BASIC 1.0 still had numerous bugs and IEEE-488 support

15738-567: Was shown to the public at the Winter CES 1977 in January 1977, and the first hundred units were shipped in October, mostly going to magazines and software developers, while the machine was not generally available to consumers until December. However, the PET was back-ordered for months, so to ease deliveries, early in 1978, Commodore decided to cancel the 4 KB version (also because the user would be left with barely 3 KB of RAM). Commodore

15867-600: Was sold in Japan. In 2012, Commodore enthusiast Steve Gray began a project to convert the Commodore PET to colour. This involves upgrading a 4032 machine or downgrading an 8032 machine. The result is 16 colours for foreground and background, The colour RAM is located at $ 8800 which is not used in regular PET machines. Colour PET emulation is available in the newer versions of the Vice Emulator software. Other than

15996-453: Was the 1973 Xerox Alto , developed at Xerox 's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) . It had a graphical user interface ( GUI ) which later served as inspiration for Apple's Macintosh , and Microsoft's Windows operating system. The Alto was a demonstration project, not commercialized, as the parts were too expensive to be affordable. Also in 1973 Hewlett Packard introduced fully BASIC programmable microcomputers that fit entirely on top of

16125-401: Was the first company to license Microsoft 's 6502 BASIC, but the agreement nearly drove Microsoft into receivership as Commodore stipulated that they would only pay for it when the PET began shipping. This was delayed by over six months, during which Microsoft lost money and had their cash reserves further depleted by a lawsuit over ownership of Altair BASIC. At the end of the year, Microsoft

16254-456: Was the first personal computer OS ROM to be a distinct entity from BASIC. The character ROM was 4K in size, containing four different 128 character tables, the uppercase/graphics character set and upper/lowercase character set, plus reverse video versions of both. This included a number of graphics characters for creating pseudographics on the screen as well as playing card symbols (reportedly because Jack Tramiel's sons wanted to play card games on

16383-500: Was the first to emulate APL/1130 performance on a portable, single user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer". This seminal, single user portable computer now resides in the Smithsonian Institution , Washington, D.C.. Successful demonstrations of the 1973 SCAMP prototype led to the IBM 5100 portable microcomputer launched in 1975 with

16512-642: Was updated through a series of models with more memory, better keyboard, larger screen, and other modifications. The systems were a top seller in the Canadian and United States education markets, as well as for business use in Europe. The PET line was discontinued in 1982 after approximately 219,000 machines were sold. In the 1970s, Commodore was one of many electronics companies selling calculators designed around Texas Instruments (TI) chips. TI faced increasing competition from Japanese vertically integrated companies who were using new CMOS -based processors and had

16641-470: Was used because of the extremely slow 6550 SRAMs in the PET 2001, although it ceased to be a problem on 3000-series PETs since they used faster 2114 SRAMs for the video memory instead. Ordinarily, this feature was enabled on power-up. If the user did not mind snow, they could turn it off and get faster text output. BASIC programs and some machine-language software commonly did this for performance reasons. PETs with 12-inch displays (all 8000s and later 4000s) used

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