Mattel Aquarius

The Aquarius with attached expansion block including 4KB RAM expansion and game cartridge inserted, controllers, and tape Data Recorder

The back of the Aquarius, showing connectors for TV out, an external cassette drive and printer.

Looking to compete in the home computer market, Mattel Electronics turned to Radofin, the Hong Kong based manufacturer of their Intellivision consoles. Radofin had designed two computer systems. Internally they were known as "Checkers" and the more sophisticated "Chess". Mattel contracted for these to become the Aquarius and Aquarius II, respectively. Aquarius was announced in 1982 and finally released in June 1983, at a price of $160. Production ceased four months later because of poor sales. Mattel paid Radofin to take back the marketing rights, and four other companies—CEZAR Industries, CRIMAC, New Era Incentives, and Bentley Industries—also marketed the unit and accessories.

The Aquarius was often bundled with the Mini-Expander peripheral, which added game pads, an additional cartridge port for memory expansion, and the AY-3-8914 sound chip. Other peripherals were the Data recorder, 40 column thermal printer, 4K and 16K ram carts. Less common first party peripherals include a 300 baud cartridge modem, 32k RAM cart, 4 color plotter, and Quick Disk drive.

Although less expensive than the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A and Commodore VIC-20, the Aquarius had comparatively weak graphics and limited memory. Internally, Mattel programmers dubbed it "the system for the seventies".[2] Of the 32 software titles Mattel announced for the unit, only 21 were released, most of which were ports of Intellivision games. Because of the hardware limitations of the Aquarius, such as a lack of programmable graphics—even though Mattel added a special character set so games could at least use character graphics—the quality of many games suffered.

As a magazine of the time put it, "The Aquarius suffered one of the shortest lifespans of any computer—it was discontinued by Mattel almost as soon as it hit store shelves, a victim of the 1983 home computer price wars."[3] Just after the release of the Aquarius, Mattel announced plans for the Aquarius II, and there is evidence that the Aquarius II reached the market in small numbers,[4][5] but was also not a commercial success.

Motherboard

• CPU: Zilog Z80 @ 3.5 MHz
• Memory: 4K RAM, expandable to 20K RAM; 8K ROM
• Keyboard: 48-key rubber chiclet keyboard
• Display: 320 x 192 pixels (all available within borders), 40x24 text (8 x 8 pixel character block), 80x72 addressable graphics, 16 colors
• Sound: One voice, expandable to four voices
• Ports: Television, cartridge/expansion, tape recorder, printer
• PSU: Non-removable external power supply hard-wired into case providing 8.8 / 16 / 19 VDC

The Aquarius manual did not contain details of any of the ports available. The cassette port although using the same 5-Pin DIN 41524 connector as the TRS-80, did not have the same pin out and thus was incompatible with readily available cables for the TRS-80, even though they physically fit the sockets on both the computer and cassette player. The Aquarius branded cassette deck came with the appropriate cable.[6]

The cassette port a 5-pin female DIN 41524 connector

DIN41524 5 Pin Female connector

The MIC and EAR connections from the Aquarius each go to the tip/center of one of the two mini-plugs being attached to the recorder; Ground goes to the base/outside of both mini-plugs.[6]

The printer interface is a mini-stereo socket with 3 lines, the same as on the Mattel Entertainment Computer System. The Aquarius printers came with their own cables. The interface conforms to RS-232 serial signal standards (+12VDC/-12VDC), with the knowledge of the pinout it is possible to interface printers with a corresponding RS-232 interface.[6] The serial is fixed to 1200 baud 8N2 and provided both carriage return and line feed commands to the printer, thus the printer needed to be set to not auto feed with carriage return.[6]

Pin out for the connector on the Aquarius:

Typical serial printers had DB-25 interfaces; some had DE-9 interfaces; and, some Radio Shack (RS) printers had round 4-pin female DIN connector serial interfaces (with the pin sockets numbered left-to-right: 4, 3, 2, 1). The proper cable for connecting such a printer is as follows:[6]

MINI-STEREO PLUG      DB-25    DE-9     RS       FUNCTION

Tip/Center of Plug    Pin 3    Pin 2    Pin 4    Data to Printer
Middle of Plug        Pin 20   Pin 4    Pin 2    Printer Busy/Ready 
Base/Outside          Pin 7    Pin 5    Pin 3    Signal Ground

The following table shows the Mattel Aquarius character set. Each character is shown with a potential Unicode equivalent if available. Space characters are represented by the abbreviations for their names.

Mattel Aquarius[7][8][9]

	_0	_1	_2	_3	_4	_5	_6	_7	_8	_9	_A	_B	_C	_D	_E	_F
0_ 0	£ 00A3	½ 00BD	¼ 00BC	¾ 00BE	÷ 00F7	© 00A9	→ 2192	← 2190	↑ 2191	↓ 2193	↗ 2197	↙ 2199	↘ 2198	↖ 2196	�	�
1_ 16	�	�	▮ 25AE	�	�	�	�	�	�	�	▗ 2597	▝ 259D	▖ 2596	▘ 2598	▚ 259A	▄ 2584
2_ 32	SP 0020	! 0021	" 0022	# 0023	$ 0024	% 0025	& 0026	' 0027	( 0028	) 0029	* 002A	+ 002B	, 002C	- 002D	. 002E	/ 002F
3_ 48	0 0030	1 0031	2 0032	3 0033	4 0034	5 0035	6 0036	7 0037	8 0038	9 0039	: 003A	; 003B	< 003C	= 003D	> 003E	? 003F
4_ 64	@ 0040	A 0041	B 0042	C 0043	D 0044	E 0045	F 0046	G 0047	H 0048	I 0049	J 004A	K 004B	L 004C	M 004D	N 004E	O 004F
5_ 80	P 0050	Q 0051	R 0052	S 0053	T 0054	U 0055	V 0056	W 0057	X 0058	Y 0059	Z 005A	[ 005B	\ 005C	] 005D	^ 005E	_ 005F
6_ 96	` 0060	a 0061	b 0062	c 0063	d 0064	e 0065	f 0066	g 0067	h 0068	i 0069	j 006A	k 006B	l 006C	m 006D	n 006E	o 006F
7_ 112	p 0070	q 0071	r 0072	s 0073	t 0074	u 0075	v 0076	w 0077	x 0078	y 0079	z 007A	{ 007B	| 007C	} 007D	~ 007E	█ 2588
8_ 128	▇ 2587	▏ 258F	�	�	🮏 1FB8F	🮌 1FB8C	▒ 2592	● 25CF	▂ 2582	▆ 2586	♠ 2660	�	�	�	▶ 25B6	▲ 25B2
9_ 144	▁ 2581	▉ 2589	�	�	🮎 1FB8E	🮍 1FB8D	⬤ 2B24	▎ 258E	▍ 258D	▌ 258C	�	�	�	�	◀ 25C0	▼ 25BC
A_ 160	NBSP 00A0	1FB00	1FB01	1FB02	1FB03	1FB04	1FB05	1FB06	1FB07	1FB08	1FB09	1FB0A	1FB0B	1FB0C	1FB0D	1FB0E
B_ 176	1FB0F	1FB10	1FB11	1FB12	1FB13	258C	1FB14	1FB15	1FB16	1FB17	1FB18	1FB19	1FB1A	1FB1B	1FB1C	1FB1D
C_ 192	◢ 25E2	◣ 25E3	�	▊ 258A	▪ 25AA	♦ 2666	· 00B7	�	┼ 253C	�	╱ 2571	�	┴ 2534	├ 251C	┐ 2510	└ 2514
D_ 208	�	�	�	�	♥ 2665	♣ 2663	│ 2502	�	╳ 2573	�	╲ 2572	�	┬ 252C	┤ 2524	┌ 250C	┘ 2518
E_ 224	1FB1E	1FB1F	1FB20	1FB21	1FB22	1FB23	1FB24	1FB25	1FB26	1FB27	2590	1FB28	1FB29	1FB2A	1FB2B	1FB2C
F_ 240	1FB2D	1FB2E	1FB2F	1FB30	1FB31	1FB32	1FB33	1FB34	1FB35	1FB36	1FB37	1FB38	1FB39	1FB3A	1FB3B	█ 2588

  Letter   Number   Punctuation   Symbol   Other   Undefined   � No Unicode equivalent

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mattel Aquarius.

• http://www.vdSteenoven.com/aquarius/
• http://oldcomputers.net/aquarius.html
• http://www.zophar.net/aquarius/
• The Dot Eaters entry on Aquarius and the Intellivision
• Sample videos of most Mattel Aquarius programs
• The Mattel Aquarius at The Centre for Computing History
• Mattel Aquarius Software Collection playable for free in the browser at the Internet Archive