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Return to Ted kahn Prototype?


md6868

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Hey I apologize if this is the wrong area, but I am new to the forum and don't know much about atari stuff so not sure what we have, so hoping someone could shed some light on it. A friend of mines dad worked with a guy who used to work for atari or something to do with system design in the 80's. The guy gave an entire box of atari stuff to my friends dad like 20 years ago and one of the cartridges he said could be a prototype, he couldn't remember though but gave a whole box to his dad and his dad don't remember what he said about what it could be. My friend was going through the stuff and found the cartridge and asked if I knew anything about it. I have an extreme limited knowledge of atari so was of no help. The backing is different than the other cartridges and it has a sticker that says "pilot 12-1-80 return to ted kahn".Has anyone seen anything like this before. The system with it no longer works, but even if it did if I put the cartridge in how would I tell if its anything special. Thanks in advance for anyone's help, it is greatly appreciated. If its absolutely nothing I apologize for wasting your time. 

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Yes that's definitely a prototype.  If you open it up by removing the screw in the back you'll see that there are two EPROM chips in it.  I'm not sure if this is a review version or a Work In Progress though.  Given the date I'm going to guess it's a WIP.

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Thanks so much for the response. Here are some pictures of the interior. Would you say its a prototype for a game or a program? Is the best course of action to put it in a system and see what comes up or do you have any recommendations? Would it be something someone with limited knowledge of atari could do, like its a full program but just a few things changed so to someone not familiar with it they wouldn't know the difference? I am familiar with nintendo prototypes but not familiar with atari stuff. 

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PILOT was a programming language aimed at kids. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PILOT

 

Unfortunately it will be hard to determine if it's different due to it being a programming language.  You can at least see if the startup screen is the same as the released version (copyright dates and whatnot):

 

http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-pilot_15785.html

 

I just noticed the released version has a copyright of 1980, so I'm going to guess your copy is the same as the final but you never can tell.  The best way to figure it out is to dump the EPROMs and compare them.

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