Commodore PET

The PET 2001 arrived as one sealed unit, with a monochrome screen showing 40 columns of text, a cassette recorder built into the case and a keyboard, so nothing had to be wired together before you typed your first line of BASIC. It was the brainchild of Chuck Peddle, the engineer behind the 6502 processor that went on to power several of the machines on this list. The catch is that keyboard. The original chiclet keys were a letdown even at the time, and later revisions moved to full-travel keys, which are far nicer to use. Collectors who want to type rather than just display should look for one of those later models.