Help me Identify this cartridge?

[ILLSeaBass]

 

 

This was buried in a box of retro goodies I bought from someone on Craigslist... It appears to have an Atari DB15 connector attached and a very odd pin-out... The only markings on it are "Made in the UK" and "REV A"... I'm probably wrong, but my guess is it's a printer interface as the lot I bought included an Okidata printer and a Commodore 4022 printer... any help would be great.

 

Thanks,

ISB

Edited August 26, 2018 by ILLSeaBass

[ILLSeaBass]

Discovered this is a Atari 8-Bit Turbo Loader for either Cassette or Floppy Drive, or possibly both.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Open up the case and take some photos of the PCB if you can. I think I recognise this (never had one myself, but it's ringing bells in my head from the local Atari Users' Group at the time), but I can't quite place it.

 

FWIW, the SIO connector on the cable would have been able to plug into pretty much any 8-bit machine, but I'm damned if I can think of a good way that the pins on that PCB would have been used. There's too many of them for an SIO connector, and the shape of the cartridge would likely have prohibited them from plugging straight into an 8-bit machine even if they were a match.

 

If it is some sort of turbo loader, it's difficult to see how it would have worked without modifying either the cassette or disk drive.