(Mortgage) Amortization Program
By W&W Software Sales (Bob Weber)
1979
Tape 6, Program 2
Bally BASIC, 300-BAUD


Amortization Program is for the Bally Arcade/Astrocade.

This program calculates an amortization schedule.  It accepts principle, interest, payment and number of months until the loan is paid off in-full.  Notably missing is the ability to input an initial down payment.  After some calculation time, the program prints a complete table of periodic loan payments to the screen.

Instructions

Entries are made via the keypad with overlay.  Computer asks for principal; enter the dollar figures, decimal point and cents or two zeros.  Computer asks for interest; enter a whole number, decimal point, and two figures.  Computer asks for payment; enter dollar figures, decimal point and two figures.  If payment is answered, computer will start printing each payment until the lean is paid off.  If payment is unknown, press GO.  Computer asks for a number of payments; enter whole number, no decimal point, press GO. I.E. for 3 years enter 36.  Computer then tells you the amount of payment, then proceeds to print each payment, until the loan is paid off.  Each monthly figure may be up to .01 off on the cents due to lack of rounding figure on printout.

Archiving Notes:

- These program directions were transcribed from a printout on carbon paper of the instructions for W&W Software Sales, Tapes 1-7.  The seven pages faded by the time the pages were scanned in September of 2021.  This set of instructions can be downloaded here:

https://ballyalley.com/tape_manuals/misc/misc.html#WandWSoftwareSalesTapeInstructions

- This program uses the on-board calculator routines that were dropped from AstroBASIC, so this program will only work in the original Bally BASIC. It was, however, converted to work with the Extended BASICs (Blue Ram and Vipersoft). The Extended BASIC version is listed in ARCADIAN 7, no. 1 (Jun. 01, 1985): 6.

- (Mortgage) Amortization (1979)(W&W Software Sales)(300 baud)[a] -  This was archived from the Paul Zibits collection in August/October 2021 by Paul Thacker.  He notes that there are several differences compared to previously archived version.

- When Paul Thacker archived this program, he commented: "The actual calculations seem reasonably fast considering the hardware. However, the interface leaves much to be desired. There aren't a lot of options, and more instructions would have been nice. I'd say these had limited use even when they were released, and even less now."

- Adam Trionfo tried this program on October 29, 2021.  He says, "I tried Amortization Program with a principle of $100,000, an interest rate of 3.24% for a 30 year (360 month) loan.  The Bally Arcade calculated a monthly payment of $434.66.  The total payed over the course of 30 years is $156,477.  I checked this result against an online mortgage calculator and I got the exact same result."

