PET Rescue Part 4 - It's done! (Fixing the Datasette and keyboard, again) 

Adrian, you don't know how good it makes me feel to see the PET alive again. I knew I couldn't go wrong giving all that stuff to you! 😁 Now there's only half a carload to get working again, thanks for the videos!

“I have no idea what I’m doing, but I assume I just take screws out until it comes apart” DON’T TELL THEM OUR SECRET!!

Loved this series,i used to do data entry for a ultrasonic alarm manufacturer back in the late 70's,the PET was used to calculate and print out chord formulas for a new alarm system.Such a great looking computer the PET is.

My first computer was a PET 2001 with the mini keyboard and blue styling around the monitor. Great to see this one restored. Brings back many memories. My original PET was donated to a friend for parts as its memory chips had started to degrade also. Thanks Adrian!

It's always a warning sign when you start using an unfinished project as a shelf :-) Fab result and great retro space age looks. Cheers.

There was once a man who emigrated to Canada, and quickly lost touch with his family back home. Years later they found him, drunk in a ditch, and when asked what happened and why he left, he simply said "Well I saw an advert in a pub that said 'Drink Canada Dry', so I thought I'd give it a go!"... :P

The 2001 is my favorite machine of all time. That trapezoidal display gets me every time. A fantastic restoration!

That "squiggle" program looks just like the "pipes" desktop screensaver in XP.

Always loved the looks of the Commodore Pet, and your new Pet 2000 with the blue monitor bezel / surrounds just looks so awesome !! And that built in tape drive - even though it is just a modified portable tape recorder - is just so cool. 💖💖

Adrian, your 4 vidoe's took all my attention especially as i have bought in 1978 a new PET from Commodore. It was my first encounter with a personal computer and did learn to program the PETS basic a machine land some machine language. Also i made a module cou could plug in to the back for decoding morse and RTTY ( radio amateur programs ). Lots of nostalgy. Thank you!!! Wouter, Belgium

Thank you SO MUCH for demonstrating why the azimuth software was not working at first. I could NOT figure it out and was banging my head on the wall trying to figure it out!

Those crazy keyboard designs before everybody started doing the same thing.

I so appreciate your work and your repair videos. My hands don't allow me to work on electronics like I once could, so I can relive things by watching you! Thanks so much for the good times.

My grandmother had one of those electric tape eraser units. She did medical transcription for work and when she was done transcribing tapes from doctors she would erase the tapes for patient medical record privacy. Very effective and impossible to hear any left over sounds on the tape.

You are doing mankind a service saving these old machines. No sarcasm at all!

27:07 shift / run-stop not only does the load command, it also autostarts the loaded program. (executes "run" command after loading) that's why squiggle started automatically after loading :)

I remember back in 1980, the school had three Pet 2001-N's, and I was one of the three students allowed to take one home over the Christmas break. Well, one of the first things I did once I got it home was open it up to see how it worked -- I remember being quite disappointed that literally nothing was happening inside the case. Thankfully we had the N version and I never had to suffer with the chiclet keyboard. We played _a lot_ of space Invaders on those machines, also the game Star Trek.

How beautiful PET looks in the room, it looks like a video from the UFO series, I think they even used PET equipment in the series I did not know that program to align the cassette deck, I heard it in those days, until a clear tone, as sharp as possible, was heard, clear with a factory recorded tape. Regarding the cleaning of the plate and the exterior, I prefer to also use soap, it does not cause additional damage, and it is much better if it has grease or dirty hard, it just would not wet the transformer because it contains paper or cardboard. Sanding the rubber on the keys, I'm not sure it's a good idea, I think the carbon layer is very thin, I could be wrong and all the rubber is conductive, but if I'm right, it can damage the key, I think Better was the conductive paint. Thanks for your videos, I am watching them all. They already helped me repair a 1541, with a short circuit in the 12v stage that I could not find and thanks to you, a small difference in resistance technique reached the capacitor in a short circuit, thank you very much I did not know that technique.

when i recently built my current pc, i was a little bit nervous. i hadnt built a machine since 2002 and hadnt been paying much attention to progression in pc tech or anything. it was good to know AMD and Intel were still going at it, but i was partial to AMD, so i went with a Ryzen 2600 and just a Rx-580 Red Devil 8gb. i cant say im disappointed. been like two years now, but im thinking about upgrading to a Ryzen 5 3600 and RX 5700XT Red Devil.... its crazy how much PC tech has come in such a short time and i love the fact that everything i learned back in the day isnt exactly necessary, but is good knowledge to have since im fooling around with PCs from my childhood again too. its just amazing to see the advancement in tech. im so happy i grew up when i did, so i could see the huge leaps in the last 30yrs..

Adrian: "I got this machine for $10." Me: *goes on eBay, looks at PET prices* PET sellers: "How about 350-450 EUR?" Me: *closes eBay*

Best line ever “I assume I just take screws out until it comes apart”...

Man this video brought back some memories. I was young, a tape failed to load and I was so disappointed. I thought my so expensive computer was done. Somehow, I told it in school and learned about the screwdriver trick. I couldn't get home faster that day. Winding forward :-D a few months, I could hear the misalignment on the first seconds of loading.

I remember drooling over the 8K PET in magazine ads back in the late 70's. The $795 price tag (over $3,000 in today's money!) was *way* out of my family's budget. I wanted one just the same. Cool to see one of the old "chiclet" keyboard models back up and running.

Thank you for making and sharing this. And i agree. I was also manufactured in the 70's. 0770 is my chip date. I also dont look as good as some of these machines you have. 🤪😁

Yay! PET officially rescued : )

Oh, Adrian needs some Vernor’s Ginger Ale. Who’s up for it?

Those look like real nice computers! A word of caution: CRT monitors will "burn" if they show a static image (like that time border) for an extended period of time. That's why screen savers were first invented. The electron beam hitting the same phosphors repeatedly will actually heat them up and cause them to burn out and lose brightness, or in really bad cases, completely flake off the inside of the CRT face, leaving little holes where you can look into the inside of the picture tube.

Fascinating. I was in junior high when this came out. My math teacher had 4 of these PETs. I stayed after school every day programming on them. I was 12 so the Chiclet keyboard was the perfect size for me. Thanks for the memories!

When you took the tape drive apart, you could clearly see that Commodore just stick a of the shelve tape deck in the pet! Insane! And to erase tapes the quick way: if you take a broken desktop cd rom drive apart, in the lens mechanism, you can find small rectangular magnets, you can tape 1 on the top of the cassette, and then you can put the cassette into a player and push fast forward or rewind, and the whole tape will be erased as well!

15:58 If you're watching this and thinking: "Weird, my Commodore cassette player doesn't play, it only fast-forwards and rewinds", that's because the computer controls the motor of the cassette in PLAY and RECORD mode. Adrian must have entered a LOAD or SAVE command to let the computer turn the motor on, or this particular recorder was modified (I know it's not broken because he says the motor ran for a little while at startup time; that's also the computer controlling it). The Fast-Forward and rewind button override the computer. 20:44 FYI: The commodore tape file format generates something like an 8 second lead-in tone so unless you have a cassette where the lead-in tape is longer than the usual 5 seconds, you don't need to manually wind the tape past the lead-in. But I bet you already knew that from the C64 :-) 27:20 It took me years to realize that RUN-STOP actually doesn't just mean "if you press this, it will STOP your RUN", but it means STOP without shift, and RUN (after loading the first program off tape) with shift. Yes all Commodore 8-bitters had this. I like your SQUIGGLE shirt by the way ;-)

Man, I remember having to faff around with the azimuth to get games to load, I even had a special tape that helps you align the head properly. It's amazing that I would've been a primary schooler during this, I guess it shows kids are resourceful if they want something bad enough.

In the eighties I had my Datassette modified with an amplifier circuit (some tapes, expecially mass duplicated ones, had a pretty weak signal) with a three positions switch (min/med/max gain) and the recording led doubled as an azimuth indicator (solid red during load = good azimuth) so you could adjust the azimuth on the fly without any software, which I did pretty often given the motley crew of tapes that spawned my collection. So often, actually, that I wore out the paint next to the azimuth screw hole.

Your videos are so informative, entertaining and relaxing to watch, Adrian. 😊 Your choice of background music is a nice bonus. I watched this entire series and I enjoyed every minute of it. Please keep preserving history and sharing your knowledge, skills and enthusiasm with us! Thank you.

This video finally motivated me to replace the belt in my 2001, I've had the replacement belt sitting in the pet for a couple of years and just now installed it. Great to see another original series 2001 up and running. I highly recommend getting a PETVet or his new board the romulator and just using that for the ram/roms in the 2001, it cuts down the energy draw and failure points. (This was you can save your original srams for the video ram.)

I wanted to remark on one small item I noticed when you erased the cassette tape using the 'Radio Shack Bulk Tape Eraser.' I used such devices as an avid audiophile during the 80's and 90's. When using a bulk eraser with magnetic tape there is the risk of permanently recording an 'Electromagnetic Pulse,' (EMP) onto the tape unless the following procedure is used. When switching on the eraser you should hold the device at least 12" from the magnetic medium to be erased. Move the device slowly toward the tape, until making contact with the tape shell, or real. (In the case of a real move the eraser in a random pattern while contacting the real.) While keeping the device energized move it slowly away from the tape back to the distance of 12", before releasing the trigger switch, and de-energizing the eraser; this will prevent the EMP from being imprinted onto the tape. While I cannot say with certainty that recording an EMP onto magnetic tape for storage and retrieval of digital information; on tape used for audio playback the pulse is heard as a random thumping sound in the lower bass region; and cannot usually be removed once it has imprinted onto the magnetic medium. I hope this information is useful to you. I have enjoyed watching this restoration video.

I really enjoyed watching you bring this original PET back to life. It really turned out great! We must be about the same age as these were around, but not very common when I was growing up. (more Apple IIs) There was one of this same model in my middle school library, but it had a fault and I never really got to use it. It's neat to see how similar they were to Commodore's other machines.

I can’t imagine how disappointed Adrian would be if he received a fully functioning and immaculate computer.

The 80's/90's intro always makes it for me :-)

This was the first model computer I ever used in junior high and started my obsession with computers that continues to this day. Thanks for this Adrian!

beautiful pet!! great job with the azmuth adjust....you look great as well adrian !!

I didn't know you could get Indian Pale Ale with a ABV of 99% !!!! WOW!

Such a good ideal with the conductive paint.

Adrian, i really enjoyed the videos. Hopefully one of these days I can find a Basic running system. I worked for a company and wrote many programs for them. It was a lot of fun. I love watching your videos!!

This is great. The Pet 2001-8 was the first computer I ever saw, never mind used, and so every time I see that initial screen when it's turned on here is incredibly nostalgic. Thanks for rescuing this classic!

I used exactly the same conductive coating on a remote control, cleaning the pads well with IPO, then letting the conductive paint cure properly for a much longer time than required by the directions before reassembling the remote (you cured it PLENTY long - read the instructions on the package). The remote worked fine for a short while, then the coating started flaking off and shorting things, causing some interesting remote control behavior like continuous commands being sent to the TV with no buttons pressed. That this stuff can flake off easily is a complaint in Amazon reviews. Good luck.

I just stumbled on your videos today, and you reminded me of my dad. Then I saw then insulin pump and you may just be a clone of another guy! lol He's a bit more into HAM/Amateur Radio than vintage computers though.

A fellow Canadian! No wonder I like your channel so much. 😜👍🇨🇦

The PET was the first computer I ever used in 1979!

the cassette deck on your pet looks almost exactly the same as the one on my vic 20 only its dark. i`m guessing it actually is a commodore cassette deck. I love watching old computer restoration videos. great video.

Seeing the Squiggle program just blew my mind. Almost 30 years ago, I wrote a program I called Squiggles which was more advanced, but very similar. It was 256 color and would fade from one color to the next, could do multiple squiggles, etc. I have never seen or used a PET before. It just goes to show you there are no original ideas anymore. :P

Careful you don't get screen burn by running that clock program all day ;). Great to see old kit being restored back to working condition like this; good job.

Awesome that you finally got around to finish it. Absolutely worth it. That machine just looks beautiful.

Again, excellent job on this series. It was inspiring to see you not give up on the Datasette and eventually get it to load and save on the PET.

Adrian you must try Bundaberg Ginger Beer! There is so much ginger that you actually need to invert the bottle before you open it to mix up the ginger.

I programmed one of these at work during the early ’80’s... Painstaking, but a GREAT experience!

I think the Pet rescued here was what my elementary school had back in 1978 or 1979. It was the only computer available for the 600 students and only a few of us ever tried to use it. It was the first computer I used. Now, on occasion I log onto the Cheyenne super computer owned by NCAR which has over 145,000 cores capable of doing 5.34 petaflops. Some day Cheyenne will be as quaint as this Pet.

That's a cool trip down memory lane :). Back in the day I used to do C2N azimuth adjustment by ear haha, probably couldn't do that now tho :) thanks for the great vids!

Hi, good to see it up and running. Love the big electric magnet - We used to blank answering machine tapes at work, 4 girls / 4 machines/ dated Mon/Tue etc they were in customer cervices so not to get last weeks order over writing on the tape we had a "special" magnet that was oblong shaped, you passed the tape 3 or 4 times through the centre slot, the magnet was next to the windows away from the tapes just incase as a few people at times left the magnet near the small wall bench with the tapes - We needed them as customers would complain about wrong orders so on the order form the customer service girls had T4-Mon-1234 whih was that number and the counter reading around that order Anyway, you should have taken advantage of the mother board and placed a LED somewhere on it to tell you when the board was powered up. Regards George

In 8th grade we studied programming on both models of the Commodore Pet and also Apple ][ systems. They were already old, by that time.

Wow, interesting channel. You sure have a real talent for this stuff! Didn’t know you were a fellow Canadian, with most likely Scottish heritage. Thanks for all this cool stuff. Brings back memories of elementary school in the 70’s and high school in the 80’s with all these classic old computers you repair and restore. Keep up the most excellent work! I always wanted a home computer starting in the early 80’s. Parents could never afford one. Bought my first one in the year 2000. Found out I was a natural with computers. Went on to build my own and for others too. Family IT guy as well.

My first computer was a PET in 1978. The first thing I did with it was paint all the keys in clear varnish so mine never faded.

My last thrift store/charity shop (Here in the UK) find was an Atari 1040STe for £3 with mouse, manuals and a few games. Best thing is that it works.

I think what you’re looking for is called Ginger Beer in the US. It’s generally used as a mixer rather than as a solo drink (for example it’s used in Moscow Mules) but I love drinking it solo. It’s way better than ginger ale for exactly the reason you mentioned, it has a real ginger bite. You know it’s a good brand when you can see ginger pulp floating around in it. My favorite is actually a British brand called Fever Tree but there are others as well. Just look for ginger beer rather than ginger ale.

Perfect job. It is so much fun to see how you got the pet working again. I had a commdodore 4032 and I love it. then a c64 comes to my house. But my first be loved computer was this younger brother of the PET. Thanks Adrien for your effort and work you put to your videos.

LOL aligning azimuth was second nature. Had a ZX-81, Spectrum and C64 and swapped tapes with others and had to play it by ear to get the stuff to run of their tapes PET was the first computer i programmed, 40 years later still program and getting payed!! :) Thanks for the vid!

Great stuff, Adrian. I tried that silver conductive material on my SX-64 a few months back and it did not work. I ended up using a different brand. Glad it worked for you!

I admire your commitment to old computers Adrian. I enjoy your video's immensely!

Great video and troubleshooting. I think I may have been more excited than you when you got the dataset working. What a deal for $10.

Glad to see the PET got put back together! Thanks for the videos that have had great info for my own projects!

Great that the PET is now finished. Looking forward to seeing the ZX Spectrum again.

Very cool. The colour of the monitor bezel really stands out.

You want gingery? Get "ginger beer" instead of ginger ale.

Huh, I had to set the head fit in my tape drive like every few tapes, I used. Finally found a floppy disk drive. That was a time saver at these days...

Awesome work!! gotta get me some of that paint to keep around for odd remotes that randomly stop working over time, where no universal remote can't fully replace them, or replace them period.

4:44 SOOOOOO satisfying to see those silver dots showing up!

Man your attention to detail is so pleasing to watch! I hope this channel keeps growing and growing! Subscribed :)

If you like strong ginger in your ale, look for ginger beer. I know what you mean as I have a friend in Winnipeg. While Lee and I go back a ways online and off, when he came to visit me and bought some "Canada Dry" which similar to your description of an experience. Some are alcoholic so be aware and buy to your preference. I think you'll be much more pleased with what you get. So yeah, Ginger beer... As for the epoxy I would really recommend UV curing resin. It cures super fast with a $10 405nm laser from aliexpress. Just don't use the battery that comes with it. Their usually garbage. If it feels too light it might not even have any electrolyte in it. It's stupid for sure but those of us who work on computers usually have a few "dead" laptop batteries laying around which might have a few good cells in it. If you're up for a little upcycling it's an easy project. SLA printing resin works pretty well too using a dab and cure method with either a syringe or cotton swab. In some cases it cures to the plastic so well it welds it. Great stuff man. We all have to care for our pets.

Old trick I remember for saving programs to tape: when the program is finished saving, let the tape record for another 5 seconds or so. That way if there was any music, old programs, etc on the tape, they will not be butted right up against your program, and you will have far less issues loading your programs from tape. I used nothing but tapes for 6 months for my Apple ][+ from Jan-1983.

Now that looks like a *real* computer! (after watching an episode of 6 million $ man again, anyway :D) The screen outer shape alone, looks so like space ship :) I hope this PET found a good new home after this rescue.

The exposure changing looks like the camera is trying to auto expose (compensate) for when you are moving about (waving arms etc.) Might want to look at the exposure lock settings. If you already have exposure locked, it might just need more overall light, as I did not see the jumps in exposure when you filmed in the living room (a much brighter room) at the end. Hope some of that is useful. Great restore and vid. as always.

Superb result. Job well done!

Congratulations! All your hard work definitely paid off. That's a very cool vintage computer!

Nice job, such a classic machine, great to see it restored. 👍

When I'm in the mood for a good bite of ginger, I go for ginger beer (barritts is sold at my local stop and shop, a local water/soda shop also makes their own, very good ginger beer).

Adrian, I love to watch your videos. For me, they're very educational and lots of fun to watch. One day I hope to acquire some old hardware for myself, but with no cash flow it's not possible right now.

The silver fluid and vial looks identical to Kemo L100 that i got 20 years ago and am still using, and is still available here in Europe. Cost me about 7€. Didn't come with any applicators. The vial is finicky. I mix it by shaking, takes a few minutes, and apply with a flattened toothpick. Needs to be mixed every about 30 seconds, or the fluid that you apply will look normal, but will contain a little bit too much binder and too little conductive flake and turns out to be actually not quite conductive enough, at best capacitive. But for remote controls and gamepads, i now use just pencil to reinvigorate pads for some reason, just seems simpler and works too, though i imagine some badly decayed pads won't respond to that. Don't have enough long term experience but i have had L100 fail after a while, wears off. Another alternative repair: chop up copper or alu tape using a hole punch or hole die set and glue on pads. This seems not ideal, because both metals oxidise building an insulating layer, but for some reason it works regardless, there is probably just enough wear of this insulating layer on every contact. Maybe there needs to be nickel tape or something. I don't have repairs that i have done in exactly this way, and i'm not sure how well the glue on the tape holds on, i think i might have had adhesion issues with alu tape that i had, but i have done that with kitchen tinfoil and contact cement, which holds up beautifully. Hypothetically it can cause wear of the underlying pads, since e.g. aluminium oxide is a high abrasive, but i haven't encountered that. The plastic part that broke in the tape drive might be polyamide. You might discover eventually that there is no adhesion between this plastic and epoxy whatsoever. Recommended repair... complicated, as availability of solvents for PA is bad and glues simply don't work. Melting bits of metal like staples into remaining plastic, reinforcing with epoxy, welding in bits of zipties with soldering iron, etc. There's no harm in it staying like it is until it breaks, and maybe the repair turns out durable after all by some accident. PA fails as it loses water content that it has been conditioned with after demoulding, it slightly shrinks and becomes more brittle - still intact PA parts can be rehydrated for durability and flexibility. If the broken part is not too big, i prefer copying it by moulding in 2K silicone and casting in epoxy.

Love to see my favorite computer finally beeing up and running, hopefully at some day I am going to get my hands on a blue PET as well :)

Nice. Enjoyed the PET series. Good work!.

4:31 That's what the eyelash thing is for, to mix it.

I swear hes stoned as hell, love you brother!

The Bob Ross of vintage pcs .

I remember when I was little, someone gave us a sturdy, but heavily used NES clone, which were famous for unreliable keypresses. Being the 6 year old self-proclaimed smartass and genius tinkerer I cut some foil from the chocolate bar wrap and glued it on rubber contacts, and tried not to touch the dust and dirt anywhere so i won't get caught "breaking" stuff. Suddenly half of games became easier and combos started to make sense.

You can also use the "Verify " command for some versions of PET basic. It verifies the tape data vs what's in memory.

Really interesting product !

Damn. That is a beautiful machine.

Finally. No more headless PET.

Fantastic series Adrian!!!!!!!!!!!

Interesting series. Thank you. One suggestion: modify the descriptions of older videos in the series to have links to the newer ones. It is sometimes quite cumbersome to find the next video.

I like the time-lapse music

you might enjoy Vernors, a ginger ale started in Detroit, MI. it's distributed by Keurig-Dr Pepper so should be available in Oregon.