This episode features The Color Accountant, originally released in 1981 by FutureHouse.  It was developed by Programmers Institute and written by Andrew A. Hock.

Podcast: Download

Box and Supplement Scans

Neither the box nor the manual could be located.

 

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From Compute! September 1982:

 

The Color Accountant in Action

At boot …

 

Disk 1 Menu:

 

Disk 2 Boot Splash:

 

Disk 2 Menu:

 

Disk 1 Module 1 – Chart Of Accounts

Module Loading:

 

Main menu:

 

Add/Change/Delete Accounts menu:

 

Add Account:

 

Change Account:

 

Delete Account:

 

Chart Of Accounts menu:

 

Print (screen):

 

Disk 1 Module 2 – Checkbook Maintenance

Loading screen:

 

Main menu:

 

New Checkbook / Month:

 

Check entry form (note running totals at bottom):

 

Balance – Clearing (canceling) checks:

 

Balance (result):

 

Disk 1 Module 3 – Checkbook Search

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

Search results (browse):

 

Disk 1 Module 4 – Home Budget Analysis

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

File Maintenance menu.  For any menu that has this menu, this is where you will need to load your data at the start of the module and save your data when you are done with the module:

 

File Source menu (when loading).  Seems wasteful and irritatingly un-necessary:

 

Build menu:

 

Build Budget Add Item:

 

Build Budget Change Item:

 

Build Budget Delete Item:

 

Analyze Budget:

 

Disk 1 Module 5 – Appointment Calendar

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

File Maintenance menu:

 

Add/Change/Delete/Print menu (print makes more sense at the main menu, but it’s here):

 

Change Appointment:

 

Print Appointment Summary menu:

 

Print Summary (to screen):

 

Check Appointments (select date or date range):

 

Check Appointments (result):

 

Disk 2 Module 1 – Payment Calendar

This module is a virtual clone of the Appointment module.  The only difference being Bills verses Appointments and a couple of field name changes.

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

Disk 2 Module 2 – Net Worth / Income Statement

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

File Maintenance menu:

 

Pre-Statement Maintenance menu:

 

Print Net Worth Statement:

 

Print Income/Expense Statement:

 

Disk 2 Module 3 – Color Graph

Load screen:

 

Main menu:

 

Menu item 5 – Check Summary Accounts:

 

 

Menu item 6 – Graph Budgeted Items:

 

Disk 2 Module 4 – Mailing List

Load screen:

 

 

Main menu:

 

Add/Chance/Delete menu:

 

Add entry:

 

Change entry:

 

Delete entry:

 

Print will first ask you for search criteria:

 

Print results:

 

Disk 2 Module 5 – Decision Maker

Load screen:

 

Select decision type:

 

Enter list items, importance, and relevance.  Relevance is repeated until all combinations are exhausted or you are satisfied with a result set:

 

List result:

 

Yes/No Result:

 

Files

Contents

The Color Accountant uses Atari DOS 2.0.  The contents of the disk can be seen in this screenshot:

 

Printing

Print Chart Of Accounts:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/s1e15-print-chartofaccountsprintprint.pdf

Print Check Book:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/s1e15-print-printcheckbook.pdf

Print Check Search Browse:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/s1e15-print-checksearchbrowseprint.pdf

Print Mailing List:

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/s1e15-print-maillistprintprint.pdf

Print Appointment Calendar (Payment Calendar produces nearly identical results):

https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/s1e15-print-apptcalprint.pdf

 

Instructions

If you find one, let me know.

 

Show Links:

• Inverse ATASCII Chapterized AAC Test for Episode 13: https://inverseatascii.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/s1e13enhanced (dot) m4a

Copy and paste, then replace ” (dot) ” with “.”.

I did this as some players were picking up the S1E13 chapterized AAC up as S1E15 media.

 

 

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.