16 Mar
1997
16 Mar
'97
6:20 p.m.
On 18-Mar-97, classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu wrote:
Also an Aquarius Personal Computer Model 5931R from
Radofin Electronics
(Far East) Ltd. Has anybody ever heard of this thing? I sure haven't.
It has small blue rubber keys and a template with basic commands
written all over it. It's about 30cm x 18cm x 4cm. On the back
there are three ports labelled Print, Cass, and TV. It has a big
cartridge slot (but came with no cartridge :(. I cracked it open
to see what's on the board but it has a big shielding cage soldered
all the way around the board edge and I just didn't have the time
to tackle that. Plugged it in and attached it to a composite
monitor but got nothing. The power light did come on. I'm guessing
it probably doesn't operate without a cartridge. Any info on the
thing would be much appreciated.
Bill,
It is a Mattel Aquarius, which was always produced by Radofin Elec. It
boots into a subset of BASIC and plugs directly to a TV, generally through one
of the game switch boxes most people used so they could switch between the
input for the game and that of the antenna.
Related to this, a company called 'The Aquarius Group', parent company
Bentley Electronics out of Los Angeles, CA, marketed quite a few things for
this little system. A thermal printer, data recorder, 16k and 32k RAM
cartridges, and a miniexpander to allow you to have multiple cartridge ports,
since both memory and software cartridges used this port. From the looks of
thier little brochure, which is the only documentation I have with mine, it
looks like most of thier software was written in LOGO, though there was an
extended Basic available as well.
Jeff jeffh(a)eleventh.com
--
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// Amiga: The computer for the creative mind...since 1985!
// -------------------------------------------------------
\// True 32bit pre-emptive multitasking GUI, plug&play hardware,
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Collector of classic home computers:
Amiga 1000, Atari 800, Atari 800XL, Atari Mega-ST/2, Commodore
C-128, Commodore Plus/4, Commodore VIC-20, Kaypro 2X, Mattel
Aquarius, Osbourne Executive, Sinclair ZX-81, TI-99/4A, Timex-
Sinclair 1000, TRS-80 Color Computer-3, and a TRS-80 Model 4.
Plus Atari SuperPong and Atari 2600VCS game consoles.