Ransom Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Great! I'm glad you found that. Another piece of Atari history falls into place. As a side note: I can't imagine paying those prices for software in 1979! $69.99 for a chess game or BASIC is outrageous. That's the equivalent of over $200 today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 27, 2012 Share Posted March 27, 2012 Interesting. Video Easel was apparently originally called Life (not surprisingly Life is the first option on the menu) and Super Bug's part number got reassigned to Space Invaders. I wonder if Super Bug was ever finished? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hunmanik Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 Super Bug is mentioned here http://www.digitpress.com/library/interviews/interview_joe_decuir.html Interesting. Video Easel was apparently originally called Life (not surprisingly Life is the first option on the menu) and Super Bug's part number got reassigned to Space Invaders. I wonder if Super Bug was ever finished? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 28, 2012 Share Posted March 28, 2012 Super Bug is mentioned here http://www.digitpres...joe_decuir.html Interesting. Video Easel was apparently originally called Life (not surprisingly Life is the first option on the menu) and Super Bug's part number got reassigned to Space Invaders. I wonder if Super Bug was ever finished? Ahh so it was never finished. I wonder if there's a proto around somewhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 Another item found, it was the 1980 CES show: 1980 January: At the Winter CES in Las Vegas, for the 400/800, Atari introduced the 825 printer, 830 modem, and 850 interface. 400/800 software titles introduced: 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Star Raiders, Personal Finance (never shipped as introduced; possibly eventually shipped as: Personal Financial Management System). Also, list prices for the 400 and 800 packages increased to US$630 and US$1,080 (up from US$550 and US$1,000). Nice website by the way: http://mcurrent.name/atarihistory/atari.html#AWarnerCo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnBuell Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 Another item found, it was the 1980 CES show: 1980 January: At the Winter CES in Las Vegas, for the 400/800, Atari introduced the 825 printer, 830 modem, and 850 interface. 400/800 software titles introduced: 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, Star Raiders, Personal Finance (never shipped as introduced; possibly eventually shipped as: Personal Financial Management System). Also, list prices for the 400 and 800 packages increased to US$630 and US$1,080 (up from US$550 and US$1,000). Nice website by the way: http://mcurrent.name....html#AWarnerCo Thanks a LOT for the URL, there went my afternoon! Actually, that's a fun site, surprised I haven't run across it before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 That's Michael Current's site - he's the guy behind the Atari 8-bit FAQ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 Oops - double post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hunmanik Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 And known here (or not known here, as the case may be ) as 'hunmanik'. That's Michael Current's site - he's the guy behind the Atari 8-bit FAQ. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 And known here (or not known here, as the case may be) as 'hunmanik'. That's Michael Current's site - he's the guy behind the Atari 8-bit FAQ. Apologies for not pointing that out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Just ran across this, all I can tell you is this.... Checkbook Balancer is a component that is part of the Personal Financial Management System, its an individual executable module, so someone could've isolated it and put it onto a cart. PFMS was Atari CX406 This was part of a series of approx 10 strictly business and financial related programs Atari initially developed for the 800 system, but were quickly canned as Atari wanted the systems to be less "business" and more home based products. PFMS was released in 1981 btw. CX401 was the General Accountant CX404 was the Atari Word Processor (to be replaced later by Atariwriter) Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Super Bug was not finished, Joe Decuir wrote it and unfortunately didn't retain any of the sources and I've never found any on the mainframe restores. Super Bug is mentioned here http://www.digitpres...joe_decuir.html Interesting. Video Easel was apparently originally called Life (not surprisingly Life is the first option on the menu) and Super Bug's part number got reassigned to Space Invaders. I wonder if Super Bug was ever finished? Ahh so it was never finished. I wonder if there's a proto around somewhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted July 13, 2012 Author Share Posted July 13, 2012 (edited) Just ran across this, all I can tell you is this.... Checkbook Balancer is a component that is part of the Personal Financial Management System, its an individual executable module, so someone could've isolated it and put it onto a cart. PFMS was Atari CX406 This was part of a series of approx 10 strictly business and financial related programs Atari initially developed for the 800 system, but were quickly canned as Atari wanted the systems to be less "business" and more home based products. PFMS was released in 1981 btw. CX401 was the General Accountant CX404 was the Atari Word Processor (to be replaced later by Atariwriter) Curt Did you have a chance to check out some of the information I found? Atari press release link with flyer. CXL#8001 was listed to be sold for $69.99 as home finance cartridge in 1979. And at 1980 CES it was unvailed. The chips say 1980. I still believe it was some sort of working final mock-up, but the label is on Atari stock and printed (for some reason they wanted a production label for it??). I'd love to find who worked on PF, I'm sure there is a great story behind its evolution. Why 'Checkbook' on the label and the menu says 'Personal Finance'. I'm still going through all my boxes in hopes to find more on it. Thanx for taking the time to contribute some more information. Edited July 13, 2012 by chrislynn5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Just thought I'd bump this in case anything new has been found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted March 10, 2017 Author Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) I've wondered after reading information on AtariAge on the 815 drive, that maybe this is required? That the 815 was stated as required for Personal Finance, and I read it formats disks differently? I don't even know if an 815 formatted disk can even be used in a standard 810 drive, but would that work? Would the disk be read in such a way that the cart code would recognize it? I don't have access to a 815 drive Thanx. Edited March 10, 2017 by Atari8bitCarts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 (edited) If memory serves it was indeed required.... Atari8bitCarts' observation is one few have realized..... There were a number of things that were to be only on the 815... a means to insure both protection of software but to sell 815's as well.... neither of which came to fruition.... but a number of things ended up on that medium only and are lost ?forever? unless people held on to those 'corrupt' or 'bad' disks and finally insert them into an 815 and realize that they are perfectly valid and good. Some of the sound software is lost because of this. Although it looks like thru the years most of the techniques have been rediscovered but not yet combined... Edited March 10, 2017 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 I find it really odd that they developed software that specifically required the 815 given how expensive it was and that the project was always on the verge of getting cancelled (I think it did once). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted March 10, 2017 Author Share Posted March 10, 2017 I find it really odd that they developed software that specifically required the 815 given how expensive it was and that the project was always on the verge of getting cancelled (I think it did once). I think to Atari back in 1979-80 they didn't know yet that the 815 drive wasn't going to survive. And personal finance was not even finalized, as it was slated to be a cartridge then changed to disks. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 10, 2017 Share Posted March 10, 2017 Atari was almost as odd as I am..... the left hand was often doing something that right hand had no idea about and to confuse the situation.. the Head often told the body what to do and forgot about it... the project could become autonomic at that point. You can read about how non-existent auditing controls were. An 815 with proprietary software could go out to a studio with no concern whatsoever as part of special projects. Dedicated machines went out around the country to show what Atari could do at schools and the like often showcasing voice-changing audio processing and the like... It had little to do with the computer they were trying to sell... This was one of the reasons for smaller school sales than anticipated. The presentations were very entertaining but didn't target the reason for the visit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Johnson Posted September 3, 2021 Share Posted September 3, 2021 When I worked at Atari in the computer division I wrote a checkbook program. This is probably it. It was never released. They made me do it in Basic!!! I was using linked lists, all kind of stuff. In BASIC! Soon after this I left, eventually ending up at Imagic. 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted September 6, 2021 Author Share Posted September 6, 2021 On 9/3/2021 at 6:43 PM, Dave Johnson said: When I worked at Atari in the computer division I wrote a checkbook program. This is probably it. It was never released. They made me do it in Basic!!! I was using linked lists, all kind of stuff. In BASIC! Soon after this I left, eventually ending up at Imagic. Do you remember what it took to get it to work? It asked for a disk. (see previous posts), thanx. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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