Bertrand / AtariMania has once again come up with the goods with another preservation find, this time sharing an early prototype of Sketch by Romox for the Atari 8-bit home computer platform. Although it is technically an application rather than a game, it is still a very interesting recovery, especially since Romox was otherwise known for producing games.
According to Bertrand, this prototype has been sitting in his collection for at least twenty years, but for some reason it never previously made it online. The build is an early disk version written in BASIC and includes a few sample pictures. It is also believed the cartridge release would have been partially rewritten, although that version has not surfaced.
There is also a small picture of Sketch shown in the 1983 Romox catalogue, which suggests the title did get at least some attention at the time, even if it never seems to have been widely copied or preserved. Bertrand has kindly provided a link to the AtariAge thread and Atarimania entry for anyone wanting to dig further into the details.
Many thanks to Bertrand / AtariMania for preserving and sharing this piece of Atari 8-bit history.
Not really sure what you’re trying to say, could you elaborate?
Whether this title was originally Jim Dunion’s own tool is irrelevant, the nice bit is that this is a prototype… of an unreleased prototype. The screenshot in the catalog shows a different date and presentation so the program was enhanced but never commercialized (and the likely finished version is still missing).
Not claiming this is the find of the year but the interesting part is that Romox specialized in games and not applications. Also, I forgot about the disk for 30+ years and it seems it barely hit the pirate circuit as it was never uploaded before. As Frank had recently added information about other Romox games, I thought it would be fun to post this one…
just seems like his own tools , released if you look at the other stuff put out. CDU paint for example was ratt’s own paint tools on 64, for example