First check out the PET 2001 entry for more general information on Commodore PET computers.
Encouraged by brisk US and Canada sales of the PET 2001, Commodore introduced their wonder machine to the European market, only to hit an almost immediate snag. The Dutch company Philips was involved with a German company called Softlab Munich in producing a 96 kB. RAM System called the "Programm-Entwicklungs-Terminal", and had rights to the acronym "PET". Facing threats of a lawsuit, Commodore removed the "PET" name from their 2001 series computers, and rebadged them in Europe as the "CBM 3001" series. Strangely, Softlab's reaction to the Commodore PET was to rename their own machine to Maestro I. This re-branding story is very confusing.
The CBM 3008 was briefly available, to be quickly replaced by the more common CBM 3016 and the CBM 3032 (below). Shown here is an upgraded CBM 3008.
The 3001 series is clearly based off the 2001 series
architecture. They come stock with BASIC 3.0, but many are upgraded to
BASIC 4.0, which was readily available soon after their original release. All of the
machines in this series feature a 9" green phosphorous screen and a full
graphic keyboard. A datasette is an optional feature
that plugs into the external datasette port, as are disk drives and printers
through the IEEE-488 port. A fully programmable bi-directional parallel "user"
port is used to control a myriad of home project hardware. Shown here is
the CBM 3016, while the CBM 3032 is below.
Video: MOS Technology 6545 CRTC
Keyboard: Full 69 key QWERTY
Resources:
One of the more interesting items in this collection is this hand-upgraded
CBM 3008. Starting from an original 3008 motherboard, the previous owner
managed to socket and then fill the memory sockets, bringing this machine
up to the maximum 32k. The ROMs were then replaced, bringing it up to
BASIC 4.0. At the same time, a third party video board was installed, giving
this little machine an INCREDIBLE, crisp, 80 columns of text video on that
tiny little 9" screen. I cannot yet report whether the killer-poke, or the
80-to-40 column programs have any effect on this machine. Click on the picture
for a slight enlargement.
Personal Note:
Not a whole lot to say here. The 3016 and 3032 were purchased from German
collectors in 1999, and 2000 respectively. The 3008 came
from an eBay auction.
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