The PET was the first fully equipped off-the-shelf home computer. Because of the reliance on Texas Instruments for its digital calculators, Commdodore bought MOS, a semiconductor manufacturer. The new highly competitive 8 bit MOS 6502 microprocessor was key to the success of the PET. It spread widely in North American households, offices and educational institutions. The keyboard was ironically nicknamed "Chiclet keyboard" because of similarities with chewing gum. Later models were shipped with larger, extended keyboards. Due to trademark conflicts with Philips, the Personal Electronic Transactor (PET) was renamed to TBM (Commodore Business Machines), which is also a reference to IBM). The PET set the standards for later 8 bit computers. |