Aquarius



"Truly simple!"

After the success of the Intellivision, Mattel decided it was time to invest in home computers. But what kind of computer do you get from a toy maker? A toy computer, pretty much. The Aquarius was a machine right out of the previous decade, even lacking programmable graphics: everything on the screen had to be assembled from a built-in set of glyphs. So all games in its meager library, mostly Intellivision ports, looked even worse than those on the then-aging console. Realizing it was a dud, Mattel gave it back to Radofin (the contractor that actually produced it), who used aggressive price cuts to extend its life a few months. But, even as a super low cost machine, it could not compete with the likes of ZX Spectrum, so it was soon discontinued.