The Commodore CBM 3032 is a successor to the original Commodore PET 2001, yet due a conflicting trademark issue with Philips these first European PETs were called ‘CBM’ instead. Hence the labeling on the CBM 3032 that [Drygol] had in for a restoration, which would have been produced somewhere between 1979 and the cessation of its manufacturing a few years later. This former machine of the University of Szcezecin in Poland had languished in a basement until a local demoscene group came across it and wanted to use it, after a restoration.
Although at first glance from just the front it didn’t look too shabby, problems were apparent from just a walkaround, including rusty and buckled paneling, showing that the time spent in storage had not done it any favors. Internally there was decades worth of dust, along with a dodgy potentiometer, cold joints and some PCB-level bodges that may or may not have been there from the factory.
The main case was disassembled by drilling out the rivets to gain full access to every nook and cranny, allowing for a good cleaning and repainting prior to putting in fresh rivets. On the PCB side of things, a potentiometer and an LM340KC-12 linear regulator in a TO-3 package had to be replaced, after which the system managed to boot reliably once in every three attempts.
Fixing this took basically cleaning all contacts and IC sockets, as well as refurbishing the keyboard, with corrosion and the occasional broken trace causing a lot of grief. Ultimately the system was restored and ready to be put into demoscene service.
Those computers were used in Vice City bank. I wonder if GTA 6 (Vice City remaster) will have them too
It is being feature in some McGyver épisode.
Love the shape.
The PETs were cool! In early 80s, the CBM II series had an optional 8088 board that could boot into CP/M-86 and MS-DOS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBv9xVjSc8
They also had 6809 CPU in the late SuperPET line. SuperPET was basically a 8032 PET with CPU, 64K extra RAM, and a couple switches to toggle between 6502 and 6809 CPU. I got it stored somewhere, it needs some working as it has trouble booting up
my first (third hand?) computer!
Had me first there.
So what’s different between a 30XX Pet and a 40XX Pet?
The 3000 series is the European version of the revised 2001 series from the US. Those were the later models that has the nicer keyboard and higher RAM density, but before the cost optimizations and CRTC that went into the 4000 series.
What did the potentiometer control? Sound? Other?
Also, the brightness POT took a lot of beating.
It’s Szczecin and not Szcezecin btw :)