The Commodore 64
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(The PET and BASIC) | (The PET and PETSCII) | ||
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The PET was the first of Commodore's computers to include BASIC in the ROM, making the PET ready for programming the moment the computer had booted up. As detailed in the BASIC chapter, Commodore computers ran a version of BASIC developed by Micro-Soft, the early form of the computer giant now known as Microsoft. Rick Wyland, an early Micro-Soft employee, developed the 6502 version of BASIC on his own, adopting it from Gates' and Allen's original Intel 8008 version without official approval from Gates. Gates' attitude was that Micro-Soft should make some money on the 6502 BASIC, and move one. (Bagnall 69). Prior to the release of the PET, Commodore bought a one-time license to Microsoft BASIC, enough to cover Micro-Soft's development costs. As Leonard Tramiel, Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel's son explains, "It was a one-time, royalty-free purchase. The ROMs went through different versions and there were changes in the operating system, but I don't think there were any changes to BASIC itself" (Bagnall 83). Jack Tramiel took full advantage of his purchase, putting the same version of BASIC on every computer Commodore ever sold, from the PET to the Commodore 64, even when that version of BASIC would be considered obsolete by any other measure. | The PET was the first of Commodore's computers to include BASIC in the ROM, making the PET ready for programming the moment the computer had booted up. As detailed in the BASIC chapter, Commodore computers ran a version of BASIC developed by Micro-Soft, the early form of the computer giant now known as Microsoft. Rick Wyland, an early Micro-Soft employee, developed the 6502 version of BASIC on his own, adopting it from Gates' and Allen's original Intel 8008 version without official approval from Gates. Gates' attitude was that Micro-Soft should make some money on the 6502 BASIC, and move one. (Bagnall 69). Prior to the release of the PET, Commodore bought a one-time license to Microsoft BASIC, enough to cover Micro-Soft's development costs. As Leonard Tramiel, Commodore CEO Jack Tramiel's son explains, "It was a one-time, royalty-free purchase. The ROMs went through different versions and there were changes in the operating system, but I don't think there were any changes to BASIC itself" (Bagnall 83). Jack Tramiel took full advantage of his purchase, putting the same version of BASIC on every computer Commodore ever sold, from the PET to the Commodore 64, even when that version of BASIC would be considered obsolete by any other measure. | ||
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| + | In addition to BASIC, another legacy of the PET that made its mark on the Commodore 64 -- and indeed, on the 10 PRINT program -- was its extended graphical character set, informally dubbed PETSCII, a nominative gesture toward the widely adopted ASCII character set. PETSCII largely designed for the PET by engineer Bill Seiler and Leonard Tramiel, who worked at the time as Commodore's in-house tester and debugger (Bagnall 92-93). The chief rationale of PETSCII, which included the 128 characters of ASCII plus 128 additional graphic characters, was to make a simple way to use graphical characters, for example, playing card symbols | ||
=Learning Through Play= | =Learning Through Play= | ||
