Editing Commodore PET (section)

===Origins===
[[File:Original prototype PET, secret hardware archive, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, California, USA (49502019167).jpg|thumb|Original prototype PET, in the storage warehouse of the [[Computer History Museum]], Mountain View, California]]

In the 1970s, Commodore was one of many electronics companies selling calculators designed around [[Texas Instruments]] (TI) chips. TI faced increasing competition from Japanese [[Vertical integration|vertically integrated]] companies who were using new [[CMOS]]-based processors and had a lower total cost of production. These companies began to undercut TI business, so TI responded by entering the calculator market directly in 1975. As a result, TI was selling complete calculators at lower price points than they sold just the chipset to their former customers, and the industry that had built up around it was frozen out of the market.

Commodore initially responded by beginning their own attempt to form a vertically integrated calculator line as well, purchasing a vendor in California that was working on a competitive CMOS calculator chip and an [[Light-emitting diode|LED]] production line.

They also went looking for a company with an existing calculator chip line, something to tide them over in the immediate term, and this led them to [[MOS Technology]]. MOS had been building calculator chips for some time, but more recently had begun to branch out into new markets with its [[MOS Technology 6502|6502]] microprocessor design, which they were trying to bring to market. Along with the 6502 came [[Chuck Peddle]]'s [[KIM-1]] design (short for "Keyboard Input Monitor") in January 1976, a small computer kit based on the 6502. At Commodore, Peddle had long dreamed of making computers and convinced [[Jack Tramiel]] that calculators were a dead-end and that Commodore should explore the burgeoning [[microcomputer]] market instead. At first, they considered purchasing an existing design, and in September 1976 Peddle asked for a demonstration of [[Steve Jobs]] and [[Steve Wozniak]]'s [[Apple II (1977 computer)|Apple II]] prototype. Steve Jobs was offering to sell it to Commodore, but Commodore considered Jobs' offer too expensive.<ref>Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs, 2011.</ref>