Some advice on romance for you from a retro video game historian: Find someone who looks at you the way this lady looks at the guy running the Aquarius Home Computer System, by Mattel Electronics.

On second thought, maybe don’t. She looks like she’s thinking about slitting his throat while he sleeps tonight, and whether she could completely bathe her naked body in the amount of blood that came out of him.

And another thing: this photo seems to prove just how unuseable the crap keyboard on the Aquarius was. Look at the man’s fingers, curled up like an old, arthritic witch in order to press on those tiny, rubbery chiclet-keys. The computer came with a built-in flavour of Microsoft BASIC, but can you imagine trying to program on that thing? 20 minutes and I’d be longing for release, as the pumping blood from my carotid artery splashed on my wife’s writhing body.

Also, the dude has a Mini Expander AND two memory packs, but hasn’t installed them into the computer? That means he’s stuck with the anemic 4K standard RAM in the Aquarius. Yes honey, you can bring the kitchen knife to bed tonight.

For more information on the Mattel Aquarius, as well as the company’s famous home console Intellivision, consult your local Dot Eaters entry, here.

This is an interesting find, from NuGeneration Gaming. It is a video of gameplay from Space Ram, a tank game on the Mattel Aquarius personal computer.

The Aquarius was Mattel’s attempt to enter the burgeoning personal computer market, released in 1983. It’s strange that Mattel would attempt to market a computer alongside the ECS or Entertainment Computer System that they also sold as an add-on to their Intellivision console, designed to turn the Master Component into a full-fledged computer. I guess it shows that the company had no real confidence in either system. At any rate, the Aquarius failed miserably as a home computer of the era. The writing was on the wall internally at Mattel; while the official promotional tagline of the computer was Smart Enough to be Simple, programmers had their own slogan for the machine, referring to its obsolete specifications by 1983 : The System for the 70’s.

Category Archives: aquarius

Promotional Photo Theatre: Crazy Lady

For more information on the Mattel Aquarius, as well as the company’s famous home console Intellivision, consult your local Dot Eaters entry, here.

Tank Game for Mattel Aquarius

For more information on Intellivision, Mattel Electronics and the Aquarius computer, consult your local Dot Eaters entry.