Aquarius USR()

From: Sam Ismail <dastar_at_crl.com>
Date: Mon Jul 7 17:23:49 1997

On Mon, 7 Jul 1997, Andy Brobston wrote:

> When I first got my Mattel Aquarius some thirteen years ago, I
> remember going through the owner's manual, typing in all the programs
> and all that. The manual documented the USR() function as something to
> execute machine language, which was "beyond the scope of the manual."
> I looked for probably three years (until I got my Apple IIgs and lost
> interest) for info on "machine code." The only place I knew to look
> was the public library, which, of course, had nothing.
>
> Does anyone know more about this? I don't have my Aquarius where I'm
> living right now to play with, unfortunately.

Basically, you'd poke in Z-80 assembler code and then use the USR()
function to execute it. I followed the same path you did, and alas never
did search beyond the scope of the manual to do assembly. It wasn't
until I got my Apple ][ that I learned 6502 assembly. You'd probably
need some systems manuals for the Aquarius to do anything useful on it,
and I don't think Mattel ever had anything like that publicly available.

Speaking of Aquarius, yesterday I had the pleasure of rooting around in
Doug Coward's collection, which I must say is incredible. He has
computers that I never even knew existed, plus lots of rare games
machines and peripherals and stuff. I think on of the rarest items he
has is an Aquarius Compact Disk Drive. I thought it was never supposed
to be released, but there it is, sitting on one of Doug's shelves. It's
a big sucker, about 8" x 8" by 2.5". Just amazing. It seems to have
used the Compact floppy disks which looked like a 3.5" but were
rectangular in shape (longer than it is wide). Doug, scan that in and
put it in your museum!

Sam
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Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Received on Mon Jul 07 1997 - 17:23:49 BST