In a message dated 6/14/2004 7:14:14 PM Central Standard Time,
dhylands@... writes:
I couldn't help but notice the Commodore Pet sitting next to it. Do you
still use this?<<
Dave! A brief "Yes." would not be UNtrue, but it WOULD be inaccurate, so
this needs a response. The scene in the photo is still exactly as it is in that
photo. That PET is the first "2001/16N PET" I ever had (new in '78! The very
first was an "8K Chicklet Keyboard PET!"). IT still works! I have another,
a 4032, on my first-ever home-brew CNC Lathe which I bought for $100 about
'85, and which still works but for some bits in high-RAM that seem to be doing
that "alpha particle thing" now and then. A sudden and totally unpredictable
unreliability problem. I had an offer from a local "PC Shop" that were I to
come take away ALL the old PET stuff, working or not, I could HAVE it all, no
charge. I did that. Two or three of the dozen "kinda worked" and I moved parts
around until I got two more working, but they all gave out in short order, so
I now have NOTHING "in the office" upon which to program the PET's. A newer
home-brew CNC lathe has a now-obsolete-but-working-fine Compaq "Tower" and an
old 13" monochrome monitor, and that is totally satisfactory. So I intend to
replace the PET on the lathe with another "old PC" as soon as I can find one of
those round tuits. I have not used the PET to run the PCB-drill you see in
about a year, but I DID fire it up the other day to check, and it still
functions well (I still had an old tape in the cassette unit of a forgotten PC-board,
for testing it). I had already begun writing the BASIC programs for the PC,
basically a word-for-word copy of the PET programs, except for the
machine-code patch, CLS, etc.
Any questions, feel free! Jan Rowland
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]