Tech Rumors/Legends?

From: David Vohs <netsurfer_x1_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Thu Jun 1 17:58:09 2000

>Nice little summary article.
>
>From that:
>
>"Aquarius
>
>Mattel
>
>When Mattel demonstrated this computer at a trade show >in 1983, employees
>had to conceal one of the keys with >masking tape. For some bizarre reason
>known only to >Matte l engineers, the Aquarius had a convenient key >that
>instantly rebooted the computer and wiped out all >your data."
>
>It was called the RESET key and I hated it. They at >least designed a
>little ridge around it so it was harder >to accidentally press. However, I
>remember you could do >a CTRL-C or some other control key sequence and
>"undo" >the RESET (basially it would cancel the reset and put >you back
>where you just were).
>
>When you first turned the Aquarius on, you had a little >intro screen that
>said whatever, something like "Mattel >Aquarius" ... "Press any key to
>continue". When you >pressed a key it initialized BASIC and plopped you
>into a prompt.
>
>Pressing the RESET key apparently didn't erase the >memory but just took
>you to the initial startup screen, >so it was made possible to back out of
>a RESET using the >control key sequence.
>
>Sellam International Man >of Intrigue and
>Danger
>--------------------------------------------------------->----------------------
>Looking for a six in a pile of nines...
>
> Coming soon: VCF 4.0!
> VCF East: Planning in Progress
> See http://www.vintage.org for >details!

One thing I'm surprised that did not make it onto that list it the Macintosh
Portable (it probably was #21 or thereabouts). If the DG/1 required Superman
to pick it up, I don't want to know who they would have required to pick it
up!
____________________________________________________________
David Vohs, Digital Archaeologist & Computer Historian.
Home page: http://www.geocities.com/netsurfer_x1/

Computer Collection:

"Triumph": Commodore 64C, 1802, 1541, FSD-1, GeoRAM 512, Okimate 20.
"Leela": Macintosh 128 (Plus upgrade), Nova SCSI HDD, Imagewriter II.
"Delorean": TI-99/4A.
"Monolith": Apple Macintosh Portable.
"Spectrum": Tandy Color Computer 3.
"Boombox": Sharp PC-7000.
____________________________________________________________
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Received on Thu Jun 01 2000 - 17:58:09 BST

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