Commodore Advert - March 1981

In the year that the VIC 20 would be released comes an advert - very much a contemporary of the similar Primeval Swamp - for the Commodore PET, or rather not for any particular PET but for the support network that Commodore had built up - training, dealerships, software, etc.

In an era of huge churn - companies would appear, sell something for a while and then go bankrupt in the space of a year or two - the offer of a bit of stability from a company that had been around since 1958 and which had been making calculators since 1971 and computers since 1977, would have been pretty comforting.

PETs by now could be bought from £450 plus VAT - about £2,960 in 2024 terms - and "complete business system" could be purchased for the princely sum of £2,300 (nearly £13,100 in 2024 money).

The cheaper machine was probably the older 4016 PET, with 40-column display and 16K of RAM. Commodore had also just released the 8032 model, dubbed "SuperPET" in the press, which was an 80-column machine - with a suitably-bigger monitor - and 32K RAM.

A business system with the 8032, plus the newly-released 8050 Dual Floppy 530K disk drive, and the established 3022 Tractor Printer, came in at more like £3,000 (£15,500) but it was, apparently, an impressive bundle.

Computing Today wrote of it, in its March 1981 review of the SuperPET, that it was

"An impressive machine in most respects with superb editing facilities. The introduction od the 80-column display is a major improvement and will probably become the norm for the coming generation of microcomputers".

There was however much criticism of the documentation. Commodore had an appaling reputation for its user manuals, and the new SuperPET was no exception.

Computing Today's A. P. Stephenson wrote of the User Guide, which "[presented] a modern, glossy, professional appearance" that a "study of the contents leads to the depressing conclusion that the cover is indeed the best part^[1]".