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SuperPET with high price and in unknown state!

dave_m

dave_m

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Someone in Calgary is offering a SuperPet for 1,400 Canadian. The problem is that while they show a few photos of the outside with the Commodore welcome message, there is nothing showing the inside or that the machine works in the Super mode. It is offered 'AS IS' with no manuals or documentation.

How does anyone expect to get good money when they only offer a pig in a poke? I wish a Commodore guy got ahold of this before it fell into the hands of a recycler.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Commodore-Su...e-/271597285210?ssPageName=ADME:SS:SS:US:3160
 
I can't believe how many PETs that come up for sale seem to be from Canadian sellers in general. Or maybe that's just how it seems to me.
 
I think the simple explanation is that Commodore was A HUGE deal in Canada in the 70's & 80's.

The first computer I ever touched as a kid around the time of "Star Wars" was a PET. In Ontario, Commodore OWNED the educational market. Our schools were filled with PETs! I never, I mean never saw an Apple up here.

I (and most people then I think) thought of Commodore as a Canadian Company.

It was hard not to since their products were essentially marketed heavily in the classic shows "Bits & Bytes" and its companion program "The Academy". These aired in the early 80's on TV Ontario (which is like the US's PBS). Every kid in In Ontario (or Canada for that matter!) at the time knew who Jim Butterfield was! ;)

Toronto seemed to be the centre of the Commodore universe back then.
 
And don't forget that the SuperPet modification was designed by the University of Waterloo as well as all the language software that ran on it.
 
CanadaPhil said:
I think the simple explanation is that Commodore was A HUGE deal in Canada in the 70's & 80's.

The first computer I ever touched as a kid around the time of "Star Wars" was a PET. In Ontario, Commodore OWNED the educational market. Our schools were filled with PETs! I never, I mean never saw an Apple up here.

I (and most people then I think) thought of Commodore as a Canadian Company.

It was hard not to since their products were essentially marketed heavily in the classic shows "Bits & Bytes" and its companion program "The Academy". These aired in the early 80's on TV Ontario (which is like the US's PBS). Every kid in In Ontario (or Canada for that matter!) at the time knew who Jim Butterfield was! ;)

Toronto seemed to be the centre of the Commodore universe back then.
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Absolutely right on. As a matter of fact Commodore did have its beginnings in Canada, with Jack Tramiel opening the Commodore Portable Typewriter Company in Toronto in 1954 and the Canadian incorporation of Commodore Business Machines, Inc. (CBM) in 1955. Even when most operations had moved south of the border in the PET days Commodore Canada was still an important part of the organization, printing newsletters, compiling software collections etc. and of course instrumental in the creation of the SuperPET as Dave mentioned.

BTW, I had the privilege of working with Jim Butterfield on both of those TVO shows; not only was he a walking encyclopedia of anything 6502-related, but also a real nice guy always ready to share what he knew. RIP, Jim...
 
Yes, Jim was a true gentleman and I think was a very big part of Commodore's success in those early days. In a way, it was like he was Commodore's official spokesperson... But I think he actually had any such contract with Commodore?

I recall Jim was a guest speaker at some school event or another, and when we kids saw him it was like... "Wow! Its that Commodore Guy from TV!!"... Hahaha.

Here is another sort of Canadian connection... Captsin Kirk himself pitching the VIC20! This is pure retro gold! Thanks YouTube!...
https://youtube.com/watch?v=UK9VU1aJvTI
 
The TVO show "Bits and Bytes" was entirely responsible for me getting into IT and Jim Butterfield was one of my role models. If you were involved in it MikeS, I thank you. It was a wonderful show that we used to watch in class. We had a room full of PET 4032s and some 8032s with a Muppet(?) system that allowed the drives and printers to be shared. There wasn't an Apple II to be found; neither in high school nor college. It was why my first computer was a Commodore 64.

Decades later, it was also the reason I started collecting. I saw a Commodore 64 emulator and went to go find my old hardware but my keyboard was long discarded because i didn't work (blue screen, no text). I found my replacement C64 on eBay... then I saw a PET for sale. I found the Bits and Bytes show on Youtube and started to collect each of the computers on the show. After that, I was hooked.
 
snuci said:
The TVO show "Bits and Bytes" was entirely responsible for me getting into IT and Jim Butterfield was one of my role models. If you were involved in it MikeS, I thank you. It was a wonderful show that we used to watch in class.
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That's nice to hear, thank you, although most of the credit goes to the writers, crew and of course Luba and Billy; I just kept them honest and made sure things actually worked the way they were supposed to. If you don't blink you might actually see my name in the credits... ;-)
 
Here's mine...got it from Detroit many years ago, forget what I paid, but a brand-new boxed one like this, worth $1500? Still has the space bar sticker on it. Not sure if including drives helps or hurts an auction, but including software and books does. A few SuperPet's have sold north of $1000 according to Ebay's completed auctions view. I'd say you'd be lucky to find one that works for less than $500.

http://vintagecomputer.net/commodore/superpet/ (includes some programs I wrote if anyone wants to see how to print something in Pascal, or take a computer history quiz)
thm_CBM_SuperPet_sn-SP0009694_keyboard.jpg

thm_CBM_SuperPet_sn-SP0009694_w-system_overview.jpg
 
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snuci said:
Back to the original topic, what is a SuperPET worth anyway? Does anyone know what the last ones sold for? There's another one at http://www.ebay.com/itm/121450577443 if anyone is interested.
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A bunch of them sold at the World of Commodore a few years back for $350-$400 but I suppose the price has gone up since then; $700 doesn't seem totally out of line if it's clean and works (the monitor prompt's not a good sign ;-) ); a set of manuals would be nice...
 
Another World of Commodore coming up in early Dec.

Since I have been bitten by the Commodore nostalgia bug, I think I may make an effort to go check it out.
:)
 
I really like the SuperPET and have been trying to get my hands on one for years. I just can't afford to shell out $1k for it (maybe if I win the lottery).
Congratulations to anyone that has one. Fortunately new builds of VICE emulate the SuperPET with 6809.
 
That seller re-listed the same machine (at least the pics including the one with serial number are the same...)

BTW, billdeg, awesome machine you have there!
 
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