The Sanyo M1540A Cassette Recorder

This is the cassette tape recorder Chuck Peddle used in the original Commodore PET prototype.

PET wooden prototype.
Photo courtesy of Leonard Tramiel

Giacomo Vernoni's book "Commodore Tape Recorders"

Commodore continued using these drives in later prototypes and pre-production units.

John Feagans wrote that they bought a pallet of tape drives from a local electronics store in Palo Alto. These were then modified at the Commodore factory in Santa Clara.

The drives were modified by removing the speaker and replacing the circuit board. The corner was sawed off to prevent interference with the power supply inside the PET.

Commodore continued to use the Sanyo drives for the initial production run in October of 1977, but switched to a custom built OEM drive after October.

PET 2001-8 from Oct '77

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