This episode features Atari Stock Charting, originally released in 1980 by Atari.  This program for the Atari 8 bit line of computers was the first commercial stock charting software for the Atari.  It was part of the Investment Analysis Series.  It was developed by Control Data Corporation (CDC).

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Box and Supplement Scans

I provided these scans to AtariMania as well.

Scan of the front of the box:

Scan of the back of the box:

 

Scan of the side of the box (both sides are the same):

 

Scan of the diskette holder:

 

Scan of the disk labels and write protect tabs:

Stock Charting in Action

At boot you have to sit through 4 splash screens, and each time you return to the main menu you have to sit through 2 splash screens, and either way you also have to acknowledge a program overview screen – very un-productive.

The first is the Atari Logo (the fixed version without a blank line through it is depicted here).  This only occurs at boot:

 

In case you missed the first Atari splash, heres a second one (this happens each time you return to the main menu as well):

 

But wait, one more splash screen before you can see the menu (this happens each time you return to the main menu as well):

 

Final splash (this is skipped on return to main menu):

 

Updated final splash with modification credit (this is skipped on return to main menu):

 

Program overview screen (this happens after boot and on return to main menu):

 

The well deserved Main (Directive) Menu:

 

When entering invalid options, you are warned:

 

Module A – Define Stock Portfolio

Defining stock is 4 to 5 step process.

Step 1.  This tells you what its doing and asks if you want to see the existing portfolio.  You are given the opportunity to review the portfolio at the start of each module.:

 

Step 2 (not showing if you choose N to previous question).  If any stocks are defined their symbols would be listed here::

 

Step 3.  Instructions for input syntax.  Each module gets a screen like this::

 

Step 4.  The actual input interface, again you are reminded of the input syntax.  Note that stock symbols are limited to 4 characters:

 

Step 5.  At conclusion you are shown the portfolio:

 

Module B – Enter Closing Quotes

Entering stock quote data is again a 4 to 5 step process.

Step 1. This tells you what its doing and asks if you want to see the existing portfolio:

 

Step 2. Enter the starting trading date.  You will not be able to enter dates prior to this.  This will be the default date for all quote entries if not specified.  And note it doesn’t like 2015, so you must use a day compatible year which one is 1987:

 

Step 3. Instructions for input syntax:

 

Step 4. The actual input interface:

 

Here you can see the program can not handle todays (2010+, maybe earlier) trading volume.  I had to reverse engineer the code to figure out which field was the issue:

 

Module C – List Closing Quotes

Listing the stock quote data is another several step process.

Step 1. This tells you what its doing and asks if you want to see the existing portfolio.  No screen shot as its pretty much the same as all the others.

Step 2. Instructions for input syntax:

 

Step 3. The actual input interface:

 

Step 4. The result.  Press P to print just whats on the screen.  If there is more than one screen full of information pressing RETURN will take you to the next screen otherwise it will return you to step 3:

 

Module D – Delete Stock from Portfolio

As with the others, deleting a stock and its quote date from the portfolio is another multi-step process.

Step 1. This tells you what its doing and asks if you want to see the existing portfolio:

 

Step 2. Instructions for input syntax:

 

Step 3. The actual input interface.  It just needs the stock symbol, so why all the instructions?:

 

Module E – Graph Stock Quotes

Graphing the stock quote data is another multi-step process.

Step 1. This tells you what its doing and asks if you want to see the existing portfolio:

 

 

Step 2. Instructions for input syntax:

 

 

Step 3. The actual input interface.  The main thing its after is the stock symbol:

 

Step 4.  The stock is now graphed.  Notice in this image todays (2010+, maybe earlier) trading volume (blank vertical lines) completely obliterate the graph making it useless.  There are only 78 plot points vertically.  Also note the lower window is thrown off with huge amounts from todays trading volumes.

 

Using the version of the graphing module I modified the graph becomes legible.  The trading volume is constrained to the lower 25% of the graph.

 

Disk Swaps

If you are going to use Atari Stock Charting, you should get comfortable with these screens.  You’ll see them a lot.

Insert data disk:

 

Insert program disk:

Files

Contents

Atari Stock Charting uses Atari DOS 2.0.  The contents of the disk can be seen in this screenshot.

 

The files are:

• LOGO is the Atari Logo that is displayed briefly at boot.
• STOCK is the main menu.
• STKDEF11 is the Define Portfolio module (A).
• STKTR19 is the Enter Quote Data module (B).
• STKL7 is the List Stock Quotes module (C).
• STKDEL4 is the Delete Stock module (D).
• STKPL15 is the Graph Stock module (E).

 

Modifications

These are the modifications to the different program modules that allow it to function correctly with todays trading volumes.

Module B : Enter stock quotes

Load “D:STKTR19”

Change line 430 from:

430 IF D(1)>99999 OR D(2)>999 OR D(3)>999 OR D(4)>999 THEN ? "Closing data exceeds program limits":GOTO 435

To:

430 IF D(1)>999999 OR D(2)>999 OR D(3)>999 OR D(4)>999 THEN ? "Closing data exceeds program limits":GOTO 435

 

Module C : List stock quotes

Load “D:STKL7”

Change line 120 from:

120 P84=PEEK(84):GOSUB 300:DX=4:IX=MO:GOSUB 170:DX=DX+OX:IX=DA:GOSUB 170:DX=DX+OX:POSITION 9-DX,P84

To:

120 P84=PEEK(84):GOSUB 300:DX=4:IX=MO:GOSUB 170:DX=DX+OX:IX=DA:GOSUB 170:DX=DX+OX:POSITION 8-DX,P84

 

Module E : Graph stock

Load “D:STKPL15”

Change line 0 from:

0 REM CDC STOCK CHARTING 7/80

To:

0 REM CDC STOCK CHARTING 7/80; Mod 2015.01 Wade Ripkowski

 

Add line 2:

2 NPV=.0025

 

Change line 622 from:

622 VOLTOP=PV*F2:IF VOLTOP>78 THEN VOLTOP=78

To:

622 VOLTOP=NPV*(F2/100):IF VOLTOP>78 THEN VOLTOP=78

 

Logo

Load “D:LOGO”

Change line 5 from:

5 GRAPHICS 0:POKE 752,1:POKE 710,0:POKE 709,14:POKE 712,146

To:

5 GRAPHICS 0:POKE 752,1:POKE 710,0:POKE 709,14:POKE 712,146:POKE 82,2

 

Remove 1 space from the PRINT statement in line 100.

 

Directive Menu

Load “D:STOCK”

Change line 1 from:

1 REM CDC STOCK CHARTING  7/80

To:

1 REM CDC STOCK CHARTING 7/80; Mod 2015.01 Wade Ripkowski

 

Change line 105 from:

105 POSITION 5,19:? ZZCP$:GOSUB 37:GOSUB 37:? ZZB1$

To:

105 POSITION 5,19:? ZZCP$:POSITION 11,21:? "Modified 2015 (wr)":GOSUB 37:GOSUB 37:? ZZB1$

 

Printing

Printing the stock portfolio (very simple data):

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/s1e10-print-c-list.pdf

 

Printing a stocks quote history (one screen at a time):

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/s1e10-print-a-portfolio.pdf

 

 

Instructions

Scanned Manual download

 

Show Links:

• Atari Mania: http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-stock-charting_s19068.html
• Nasdaq EPS lookup: http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/symbol/revenue-eps
• Time and Date compatable years: http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/repeating.html?year=2015
• Control Data Corporation Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation

 

Intro music is an excerpt from a chip tune by Wizwars named 8 Bit Raceway.  It is used under Creative Common license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.