I mentioned in a previous post, that my high school Computer Science teacher lugged his old PET machine to out school back in 1992 and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s easy to forget that without the ubiquity of the internet, the world was full of secret wonders. Even though I have grown up with a Commodore 64, I had never laid eyes on the psychedelic wonder that was the PET.
Emulating the worst of all worlds.
I always loved the colours of the PETs original chicklet keyboard and thought it would be interesting to recreate the typing experience for a modern audience. I made a 2D design back in 2012 but have only recently gained the 3D chops to be able to render out the idea more fully. I posted these to a PET Facebook group a while back and two factions quickly rose up. One faction telling me this must be made, the other telling me this must NOT be made. In any case, I get the impression that a nice 3D render is good at eliciting an emotional response.
Probably best as a render.
Now that I have a basic grasp of 3D, I am looking forward to transforming some of my old 2D designs into the 3D space. While I mostly view this keyboard as a joke, part of me wishes it could be real. Imagine firing up VICE and reliving that finger strain or putting a Pi Zero in the case and using it as a stand-alone computer. Let me know what you think. Would you rock one of these?
Original 2012 2D design