Checkbook Balancer reconciles a bank statement with your checkbook. You enter the statement balance, the checkbook balance, the checks that have not cleared yet and the deposits that have not been recorded, and the computer tells you whether the account balances or is over or under.
It was written by Kristian Boisvert and published on the November 1986 issue of the Byte Power tape magazine, where it is listed as a personal utility with a 30-second loading time. The title screen reads “CHECKBOOK BALANCER, WRITTEN BY KRISTIAN BOISVERT, ©1986 BYTE POWER”.
Program Analysis
The 1,968-byte BASIC program auto-runs at line 1, shows the title for about two seconds (PAUSE 120) and calls a short machine code routine in the REM of line 0 with RANDOMIZE USR 26715; the REM’s visible text includes the heading “Checkbook Balancer”. When the routine returns, line 30 prints “‘RUN 20’ TO RUN PROGRAM AGAIN” and the program stops.
Notable Techniques
- The input and calculation are done in machine code stored in a line-0 REM; the BASIC is a five-line wrapper.
- Like the other Byte Power programs, it checks the system variable at 23681 on start-up: the magazine told readers to
POKE 23681,0before loading so that the program would stop and list line 9999, which saves a personal backup copy.
Image Gallery
Note: Type-in program listings on this website use ZMAKEBAS notation for graphics characters.