Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) Does anyone have any information on a cartridge I have titled Checkbook Cartridge #CXL8001? Atarimania believes it to be homegrown, and it might be but it looks too real to me. I've attached pictures of the screen shot, inside, and outside. The chips inside say: PERS FIN. 3-18-80 LO I remember a long time ago finding a picture of a big box version of this. I piocked this up in a huge purchase from somewhere in California about 7+ years ago. The box had all kinds of misc stuff including chips, boards, etc. Anybody know what DBFA disk is? Edited February 17, 2012 by chrislynn5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I can't help you with info on the cart but you might want to glue that left hand sticker back over that EPROM window. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Thanx, I will Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beamer320i Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 It's a homebrew/fake, but a bloody good one! Great looking label, still nice to have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qix_maniac Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 don't think someone in 1980 would of gone out of their way to make a fake ...perhaps a prototype that was only released on disk? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I agree, it's very nice looking. I've never seen any mention of it anywhere, though. So either it's a very nice fake or a very nice proto. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beamer320i Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) don't think someone in 1980 would of gone out of their way to make a fake ...perhaps a prototype that was only released on disk? It wasn't made in 1980. I may be wrong, but if it was a prototype it wouldn't have a 'proper' label, just a plain/white label? Besides, them in the know (Atarimania) have confirmed the serial/CXL number doesn't bear out. Edited February 17, 2012 by beamer320i Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 don't think someone in 1980 would of gone out of their way to make a fake ...perhaps a prototype that was only released on disk? It wasn't made in 1980. I may be wrong, but if it was a prototype it wouldn't have a 'proper' label, just a plain/white label? Besides, them in the know (Atarimania) have confirmed the serial/CXL number doesn't bear out. Well, the label might not mean it wasn't a prototype. And the CXL number seems odd if someone just thought to "add" a number to it. Who would go to the trouble and make not only a perfect label (by everything I've seen) and add a number to it. I'm trying to find the booklet that I think I had, it was in Atari color materials and production looking. The real question is what, and who, are the markings? And what is DBFA Disk mean? Thanx for your sloothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Also note, might not mean anything, but it was in a box with a bunch of Atari documents, i.e. Disk Drive information marked 'Preliminary'. Almost like early architecture materials. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 And to also make this interesting, the cart's label paper appears to be EXACTLY the same has another cart AtariWriter. The paper has very specific striations, very distinctly Atari paper/process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 PERS FIN = Personal Finances DBAF = Database of Financial Accounts? It would be interesting to see a dump of the whole thing to see what other text is in it. Is it related to this: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/3403-atari-personal-finance-cartridge-found/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck D. Head Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I can't help you with info on the cart but you might want to glue that left hand sticker back over that EPROM window. The EPROM couldnt be affected by the camera flash, could it? Cause that would suck. Dont you really need to bombard that sucker with UV? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 I can't help you with info on the cart but you might want to glue that left hand sticker back over that EPROM window. The EPROM couldnt be affected by the camera flash, could it? Cause that would suck. Dont you really need to bombard that sucker with UV? Yes, many, many hours of UV (I have a UV EProm eraser). But it couldn't hurt covering it up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Here's two dumps to play around with. checkbook8KB.bin checkbook16KB.bin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) PERS FIN = Personal Finances DBAF = Database of Financial Accounts? It would be interesting to see a dump of the whole thing to see what other text is in it. Is it related to this: http://www.atariage....artridge-found/ I think Personal Finance was a tape or disk. I put a blank diskette in the drive and it reads 'Boot error' when the cartridge tries to use it??? Edited February 17, 2012 by chrislynn5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GroovyBee Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 The EPROM couldnt be affected by the camera flash, could it? Cause that would suck. Dont you really need to bombard that sucker with UV? It would take some weeks of direct sunlight to erase the EPROM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloopy Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 The EPROM couldnt be affected by the camera flash, could it? Cause that would suck. Dont you really need to bombard that sucker with UV? It would take some weeks of direct sunlight to erase the EPROM. weeks? hours if you dont have a modern home window in between... sloopy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 Have to admit this is some weird shit... From the pics, it appears to be a proto. Seems the coder was also able to have a special label made for the program! Sounds crazy but far from impossible! I can't check the cartridge dump right now but this may well be some early code for a program that was eventually sold on disk for the 800. Maybe that odd serial number means Atari had plans for "big" cartridges specifically aimed towards the more serious, business-oriented 800. -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) don't think someone in 1980 would of gone out of their way to make a fake ...perhaps a prototype that was only released on disk? It wasn't made in 1980. I may be wrong, but if it was a prototype it wouldn't have a 'proper' label, just a plain/white label? Besides, them in the know (Atarimania) have confirmed the serial/CXL number doesn't bear out. Well, the label might not mean it wasn't a prototype. And the CXL number seems odd if someone just thought to "add" a number to it. Who would go to the trouble and make not only a perfect label (by everything I've seen) and add a number to it. I'm trying to find the booklet that I think I had, it was in Atari color materials and production looking. The real question is what, and who, are the markings? And what is DBFA Disk mean? Thanx for your sloothing. Data-Bank-For-Account. Initially it's probably just a formatted disk required. If it's a prototype maybe it's compatible with the CX85 numeric keypad. I'd like to see more screen shots. There were a couple checkbook programs as type-ins in Atari magazines back in the day, and are probably online on the magazine disk ATRs. If it's a fake label, it's the best I've ever seen, it even has the "brush" marks that all official Atari brown-labels have. I don't know if it's the material used or printing process, but it's distinctive markings and that doesn't look like scanned brush marks. On the other hand, my Atari BASIC cartridge has a different shade of brown at the bottom where the number is at, and the cart in the picture isn't a different shade, but I only have my Atari BASIC cartridge to go by, I need to see more labels for confirmation. Edited February 17, 2012 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted February 18, 2012 Author Share Posted February 18, 2012 don't think someone in 1980 would of gone out of their way to make a fake ...perhaps a prototype that was only released on disk? It wasn't made in 1980. I may be wrong, but if it was a prototype it wouldn't have a 'proper' label, just a plain/white label? Besides, them in the know (Atarimania) have confirmed the serial/CXL number doesn't bear out. Well, the label might not mean it wasn't a prototype. And the CXL number seems odd if someone just thought to "add" a number to it. Who would go to the trouble and make not only a perfect label (by everything I've seen) and add a number to it. I'm trying to find the booklet that I think I had, it was in Atari color materials and production looking. The real question is what, and who, are the markings? And what is DBFA Disk mean? Thanx for your sloothing. Data-Bank-For-Account. Initially it's probably just a formatted disk required. If it's a prototype maybe it's compatible with the CX85 numeric keypad. I'd like to see more screen shots. There were a couple checkbook programs as type-ins in Atari magazines back in the day, and are probably online on the magazine disk ATRs. If it's a fake label, it's the best I've ever seen, it even has the "brush" marks that all official Atari brown-labels have. I don't know if it's the material used or printing process, but it's distinctive markings and that doesn't look like scanned brush marks. On the other hand, my Atari BASIC cartridge has a different shade of brown at the bottom where the number is at, and the cart in the picture isn't a different shade, but I only have my Atari BASIC cartridge to go by, I need to see more labels for confirmation. Good point, I think the diskette I put in was unformatted (go figure)! AlsoI checked many of my stock atari labels and they all have the distinct brushed label with striations. I did see all the magazine article on code ofr Checkbooks so let's see if we can get it to work for some more screens! Please let me know, thanx all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Here's two dumps to play around with. Which address ranges did you use in these dumps? 8000-BFFF, A000-BFFF or ??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 It's 8K, the 16K dump is all $FF in the first half. There's valid cart vector/flags @ $BFFA. You should consider that it might not be XL compatible. To test, maybe try DOS 2.0S in 48K 800 mode in an emulator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 There were a couple checkbook programs as type-ins in Atari magazines back in the day, and are probably online on the magazine disk ATRs. I believe the best known "Checkbook" program for the Atari 8-bits is MicroCheck by Clayton Walnum. IIRC it was in an issue of A.N.A.L.O.G. in 1984(I remember typing it in), there was also an enhanced version for the 130XE released(1989?). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 (edited) There were a couple checkbook programs as type-ins in Atari magazines back in the day, and are probably online on the magazine disk ATRs. I believe the best known "Checkbook" program for the Atari 8-bits is MicroCheck by Clayton Walnum. IIRC it was in an issue of A.N.A.L.O.G. in 1984(I remember typing it in), there was also an enhanced version for the 130XE released(1989?). Yeah, I used to use the 130XE version back then when I owned one. This doesn't look like Microcheck, I don't recall a DBFA option at the beginning. But there were others, I'd bet at some point every mag that covered Atari had a type-in checkbook program. Compute! probably, Family Computing, Antic and Analog, and how about that really big multi-system mag, it was huge in every dimension...it may even still exist, but it used to cover Atari back in the day too, and I bet it had a type in checkbook program. In the early 90's late in the Atari computing era, there was Atari Interface magazine and they had a monthly disk that I think had a checkbook program on it one month. Edited February 18, 2012 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 (edited) It's 8K, the 16K dump is all $FF in the first half. There's valid cart vector/flags @ $BFFA. You should consider that it might not be XL compatible. To test, maybe try DOS 2.0S in 48K 800 mode in an emulator. Verified 8k, now to put a loader on it... Jay Edited February 18, 2012 by AtariGeezer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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