↗
Silicon Graphics
← The collectionThe story of this machine ↓
Computing becomes personal
Commodore CBM 8032
An integrated Commodore business computer.
MakerCommodore
Era1970s-1980s
TypeIntegrated personal computer
About this object
The CBM 8032 combines keyboard, display, and computer in a single unit. It represents the business-oriented branch of the PET family.
The CBM 8032 belongs to the PET and CBM family, one of the first widely distributed lines to carry Microsoft BASIC. Bill Gates and Ric Weiland completed Microsoft’s 6502 version in 1976; Commodore licensed it and adapted the lineage for its PET computers. The BASIC 4.0 in this machine is Commodore’s later business-oriented version, Commodore’s later business-oriented BASIC 4.0 belongs to that lineage.
That history gives this quiet business computer an unexpected connection: the language that helped make Microsoft was waiting in its ROM, ready for someone to type a program.
Read Microsoft’s account of the 6502 BASIC lineage →
Follow the BASIC lineage in the collection: CBM 8032 · Commodore 64 · Apple IIgs
Inspect the original photograph
Technical record
Commodore CBM 8032
| Introduced | 1980 |
|---|---|
| Processor | MOS 6502 at 1 MHz |
| Memory | 32 KB |
| Display | 12-inch green phosphor, 80 × 25 text |
| Peripherals | IEEE-488 for disks and printers |
| Operating system | Commodore BASIC 4.0 in ROM |
Architecture
Eighty columns is the whole argument for this machine. A business document is eighty characters wide because that is what a punched card and then a line printer gave you, and a forty-column display cannot show a line of it without wrapping. The 8032 put a full line on screen and drove disks and printers over IEEE-488, an instrumentation bus, which is why it turned up in laboratories as readily as in offices.
Record & provenance
The CBM 8032 combines keyboard, display, and computer in a single unit. It represents the business-oriented branch of the PET family.
Reference: ATX-OBJ-099-IMG-5165
Source: collection inventory, photographs, and notes accompanying Serious Machines (Amir Husain, 2024).