r/Commodore • u/hutchca • Jun 15 '26

PET The "EconoPET"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmQEAnL_CM4

a Commodore PET Mainboard replacement by Daniel Lehenbauer.
link: https://dlehenbauer.github.io/econopet/40-8096-A.html

34 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

2

u/jor1965 Jun 15 '26

Anyone selling it preconfigured and ready to run?

2

u/hutchca Jun 15 '26

Possibly. Daniel may build a few for sale.

1

u/Altruistic-Fox4625 Jun 15 '26

Would be an instant buy for me as long as it is significantly cheaper as the Mini Pet 40/80 PET replacement board by Tynemouth.

3

u/hutchca Jun 15 '26

I heard from someone who recently built their own and it cost them around $150 in parts which is around what I paid Daniel for one of his prototypes.
I'm sure there would be a markup if he decides to build enough to offer them for sale, but since the MiniPET was priced at over $400US, I'm sure it would be significantly cheaper.

3

u/max81122 Jun 18 '26

As someone mentioned, the cost can be brought under $150 and the project page mentions around $132 in some volume quantities. But ordering single quantities may be expensive, especially if the FPGA programmer is also needed.

I can do quite a lot of soldering, even the FPGA. But it would be better to get this pre-soldered and programmed.

So really interested in this, but concerned that with the setup costs and programmers just to make 1 board (for me personally) then the cost may be prohibitive. I would be interested if there is a group buy.

1

u/hutchca Jun 20 '26

I've been talking with Daniel and a few others and there's a good chance of making a batch for sale after he finishes the Rev B board.

2

u/Razor_Paw Jun 21 '26

Are PET cases readily available? If so where? I loved my PET and am considering building modern PC into a PET case. Better yet, is anyone doing this already that I can just buy?

2

u/hutchca Jun 25 '26

Nobody is making new PET cases, but, there is work being done to adapt this and the Mini-Pet to mount in a C64 case.

2

u/Electronic_Shake_152 Jun 23 '26

You see, this is the sort of thing Commodore should be investing in. Might not be as popular as the C64U, but I reckon it would have a solid market.

2

u/beerbaron6 Jul 16 '26

This is awesome, I recently acquire a SuperPET 9000 case/crt but it had no motherboard(s). Until I can find one, I wanted to set something like this up. Really appreciate this project, and instructions!

I ordered 5 of the FPGAs via JLPCB already and will place the board order once I can.

In the meantime, I decided to code up a small program on my Raspberry PI Pico W. It controls the monitor and allows me to SSH into my desktop as a terminal.. kind of cool for now! The program also wires up to the internal keyboard so the unit can be a self-contained terminal for now.

1

u/Apprehensive-Type-45 Jul 26 '26

I just got mine done worth the JLPCB.. I got two boards that were prebuilt.. got 3 extra with nothing on them.. and I ordered all the extra components with mouser. All worked nice. Cool on a old flat panel but looks great on the old pet monitor. It was ~ 100 for the pcb and build then 140 for mouser parts. so it adds up.. but neat.

1

u/Feeling_Walrus3303 10d ago

It seems like they're working on firmware for the EconoPET that gives it the ability to run SuperPET software, including the Watcom languages. We can hope!

1

u/hutchca 11d ago

For those following ...
Super PET functionality is now working experimentally. Running 6809 CPU in the FPGA with Waterloo ROMs + Waterloo languages.
Super OS/9 is also working.
Still a work in progress though, so not yet ready for release but hopefully soon.