
PETSCII Revealed - masswerk
https://www.masswerk.at/nowgobang/2020/petscii
======
zgramana
Surprised to see the author suggest that the C64 keyboard did not include the
graphics glyphs on the keys.

Both the VIC-20 and the C64 both had them, albeit printed on the front
vertical face instead of the horizontal face like the PET.

Moreover, the VIC-20 and the C64 keys include the box glyphs as well so you
could see what character you’d get via CTRL and the ‘C=‘ (“Commodore”) key.

The Wikipedia page* states PETSCII includes 192 characters, but the author
seems to suggest it’s at most a 7-bit charset. I was a little surprised to
find that out after reading the article.

Fun walk down memory lane.

* [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII)

~~~
rzzzt
The location is dependent on the model: the C64C had the symbols on the top of
the keys, the breadbin on the side.

~~~
rachelbythebay
FYI:
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:C64C.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:C64C.jpg)

Lots and lots of revs, apparently.

~~~
xenomachina
Yup. Early revisions of the 64C had the glyphs on the fronts of the keys, but
this was later cost-reduced to having them on the tops.

This is also one of the differences between the "Aldi C64" (breadbin case, but
beige keys with front glyphs) and the C64G (beige breadbin case, but beige
keys with top glyphs). Commodore loved to mix and match components, too. Some
C64Gs have the brown keys of the earlier breadbin C64.

~~~
rzzzt
Do you know if Commodore manufactured any two styles of these in parallel
intentionally, or if this was a matter of making use of existing
housing/keyboard assembly/motherboards?

The corresponding article on C64 Wiki says that side symbol keyboards were
used during the first year of production, and also includes a picture of the
top glyph version:
[https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/C64C](https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/C64C)

~~~
xenomachina
My understanding is that the "main line" was breadbin, 64C with front glyphs,
then 64C with top glyphs. The Aldi 64 was concurrent with the breadbin, but
mysteriously used the keys from the early 64C. The 64G was concurrent with the
late 64C. The Aldi and 64G were only available in a relatively small area
(mostly Germany), rather than internationally.

Commodore was notorious for mixing and matching parts, though. Even the very
early breadbin 64s would sometimes ship with VIC-20 function keys (orange
instead of dark gray) and vice-versa. I don't know if this was due to poor
quality control, or an intentionally sloppy supply chain management. Perhaps a
combination of both.

The 64G especially looks like they were scrambling to meet demand any way they
could, as the key colors and even the LED colors vary. I'm guessing the beige
breadbin was used to increase production speed by taking the old breadbin
injection molds out of retirement. They aren't old cases that they had in
inventory, because breadbins weren't that color previously.

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alamortsubite
Andromeda running on a PET:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLt7Dm8F9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElLt7Dm8F9M)

Seems kind of silly today, but I remember being absolutely enchanted by it as
a kid.

~~~
rbanffy
And soon we'll be able to run that on a modern terminal, thanks to Unicode
13's addition of PETSCII. :-)

------
Jupe
Fond memories of PETSCII from my very first computer experiences.

Interesting to note that the Unicode 13 update will include 214 home computer
graphic characters from the 70's and 80's [1]- I'm hopeful PETSCII will be
included.

[1]
[https://unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/#Summary](https://unicode.org/versions/Unicode13.0.0/#Summary)

Edited: 80s/90s corrected to 70s/80s.

~~~
rbanffy
PETSCII, ATASCII, TRS-80, Apple's MouseText... All included. :-)

