That's the idea. I'm going to experiment with the format and timing, but it would be silly not to cross-link when doing this. I was able to start this now obviously since I'm hard at work creating photos for the book. Once I'm done with the book stuff, I'll probably try a video of the week, though something extremely low maintenance (like capturing gameplay from obscure systems with little to no editing).

A logical jump for them no doubt as they all shared the same 6502 processor and core BASIC implementations.

If you had a chance to listen to Chuck Peddle's tale of the origins of the PET from my VCF East 4.0 2007 seminar recording, you would have heard his whole take on the whys and wherefores. For instance, the original case design was considerably sleeker (and I believe supposed to be made of plastic), but Tramiel had a metal cabinet factory that was underutilized and wanted to leverage their capabilities. So that's why the PET's original case was metal and boxy - it fit in with the factory's capabilities (and its metal nature explains why my PET is a bit rusty in spots).

The keyboard was indeed the way it was because of what I said. Essentially there was a supply of Japanese calculator-style keyboards Tramiel wanted to make use of added to his belief that the PET was a new paradigm and shouldn't be forced to fit into the typewriter paradigm. Logical reasoning at the time. You obviously can't touch type of the keypad, but you can use one finger from the right hand on the numeric keypad and one finger from the left hand on the keypad proper. Typical commands were readily available on the default keypad function, with access to the custom characters and various shift-based functions available when the appropriate activator was hit. It's sort of like a more useable form of the later Timex Sinclair 1000 (ZX80/ZX81) keyboard. In any case, while it sucked at the time and would suck now for heavy work, as a collectible its damned cool because it's so unique.

By the way, the keytops on my PET are all but pristine, which is surprising considering they wear out easily and are often rubbed off when you find one in the wild (or eBay) like I did. As a matter of fact, replacement keytops by themselves (essentially metal stickers), just sold for $76 on eBay (though shipping was free ;-) )!

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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.
(A PC Magazine Top 100 Website)
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