The PET 4016 was the second in the series of what will become
a long running series of PET computers designed by Chuck
Peddle, (who also designed the 6502 microprocessor) and
marketed by Commodore.
The 4000
series PETs came with an improved ROM giving them the
capability to access the new disk drives released with them. The 4016
and its bigger sibling the 4032 are basically identical to the
later 2000 series except for some internal changes to how the
video is accessed to speed up the graphics display. A fix incorporated
into the 4000 and later series to correct a problem with the 2000
series that drastically slowed down the PETs when graphics were
displayed.
Early on
type in patch was discovered for the early PETs. It seems that
the video chip was able to be accelerated by poking a value to a
specific address. The problem came when the new fixed PETs
arrived, it seems that by poking the value to the same address in the
newer PETs would cause the video chip to accelerate to the
point they would overheat and destroy themselves. Thus the term 'killer
poke' soon became a well known legend in PET
history.
The 4016 comes
with 16K of RAM and has 4 open sockets that I believe is for
upgrading it to 32K. There are two ports in the rear of the computer,
the one on the left is for the VIC-1530
Datassette and
the one on the right is for connecting an IEEE-488 parallel
device such as a printer or floppy disk drive. A second Datassette
connector is inside the computer at the front left hand side of the
motherboard. On the right side of the computer is an expansion slot,
but I don't know what it is used for.
This 4016 has a
metal case, although some version of the 4000 and even some 2000
series PETs came with molded plastic cases. This makes it a
very heavy computer. The power supply is built into the case and
consists of primarily a very large transformer in the left rear of the
computer apparently supplying power for the computer and the monitor.
They could have taken a lesson from the Apple people and used a
switched power supply, it would have saved a lot of weight.
I added this PET 4016 to the museum on November 5, 1999 and I
would like to thank Roger Shepherd for selling it to me.
