Mattel Electronics Aquarius| TechMuseum
Year of manufacture: 1983
Technical Specifications:
- Processor: Zilog Z80A, 3.5 MHz
- RAM: 4 KB
- FDD: –
- HDD: –
- Audio: One voice
- Connectors/Ports: Bus, parallel, cassette
- Case: Keyboard type
- Monitor: Color
- OS: Microsoft BASIC
The Mattel Aquarius features a Zilog Z80A processor at 3.5 MHz and memory of 4kB. It ran with the operating system of the Microsoft BASIC version.
Mattel is a multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company, founded in 1945. Up until today, the corporation stands as the world’s second largest toy maker, after Lego Group. Operations cover 35 countries and distribution reaches 150 countries across the world.
Except from the classic brand lines of Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, UNO and so on, the company is involved in electronic division as well. Mattel released a home computer in 1983, the Aquarius, but discontinued the production a few months later. Competition from other electronic manufacturer was grand and they couldn’t compete. Mattel had signed contract with companies like Radofin, CEZAR Industries, New Era Incentives and Bentley for marketing rights to become competitive with no success.
That was just a snapshot on the presentation of the techmuseum series. Indulge more into the history. Continue reading more about the present model, the Mattel Aquarius here.
PC.GR
The history of personal computers
Explore this exhibit with the video guide, which opens the PC.gr presentation in a video window.