Mattel  Mattel Aquarius
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Introduction

Mattel Electronics was the vidio game division of the Mattel toy company. In 1983 the company released their first home computer, the Matell Aquarius. It was based on a design from the British company Radofin. Internally the machine had a codename of Checkers and the never relased Aquarius II was codenamed Chess.

The Aquarius was sold below manufacturing price. The idea was that profit could be made on its peripherals and ROM cartridges, which included memory expansions, ports, joypads, and games. The machine came with 4KByte of RAM, which was not big enough for anything other than some small BASIC programs. The machine was capable of graphics, but this was not easy to achieve with the limited BASIC.

Matell passed all the computer business to the Radofin company, only a few months after the release of the Aquarius. Radofin did release an Aquarius II, but it was the same machine, but with a full-stroke keyboard and BASIC in ROM.

Programmable Sound Generator (AY-3-8910 compatible PSG)

The AY-3-8910 is a 3-voice Programmable Sound Generator, or PSG. It was designed by General Instrumet in 1978 for use with their own 8-bit PIC1650 and their 16-bit CP1610 computers.

The PSG is widely used in many arcade cabinets, pinball machines, and many micro-computers. Here is a list of some of the major brands of computer that used the AY-3-8910:

  • Intellivision
  • Vectrex
  • Amstrad CPC range
  • Oric-1
  • Color Genie
  • Elektor TV Games Computer
  • All MSX-1 and MSX-2 computers
  • ZX Spectrum home computers

General Instrument spun of MicroChip Technology in 1987 and the chip was sold under the MicroChip brand, and licensed to Yamaha as the YM2149F which the Atari ST range of computers use. Functionally the PSG is very similar to the Texas Instruments SN76489.

Variants:

  • AY-3-8910
    Comes with 2 general purpose 8-bit parallel I/O ports, used for Keyboard and Joystick in for instance MSX.
  • AY-3-8912
    Same chip, but in a 28-pin package. Parallel port B is not connected to save cost and space.
  • AY-3-8913
    Same chip, but in a 24-pin package. Both parallel ports are not connected.
  • AY-3-8914
    The AY-3-8914 has the same pinout and is in the same 40-pin package as the AY-3-8910, except the control registers on the chip are shuffled around, and the 'expected input' on the A9 pin may be different. It was used in Mattel's Intellivision console and Aquarius computer.
  • AY-3-8930
    Backwards compatible but BC2 pin is ignored
  • YM2149F
    Yamaha Produced chip, same pin-out as the AY-3-8910, but pin 26 could halve the master clock. Can be used to replace the AY-3-8910 if pin 26 is left disconnected.
  • YM3439-D
    CMOS version of the Y2149 in 40-pin DIP
  • YM3439-F
    CMOS version of the Y2149 in 44-pin QFP
  • YMZ294
    Variant of the YM3249 in an 18-pin package. Parallel ports not connected, and all sound channels mixed on 1 port.
  • T7766A
    Toshiba variant of the AY-3-8910, fully compatible. Used in some MSX models.
  • Winbond WF19054, JFC95101, and File KC89C72: Fully compatible versions of the AY-3-8910 produced for slot machines.

Zilog Z80 CPU Family

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000.

The Z80 microprocessor was developed by Zilog, a company founded by Federico Faggin in 1974. The Z80 was released in July 1976, as a successor to the Intel 8080. It was designed to be fully compatible with the 8080, but also included new features such as an improved instruction set, more powerful interrupts, and a more sophisticated memory management system.

The Z80 quickly became popular in the personal computer market, with many early personal computers, such as the TRS-80 and Sinclair ZX80, using the Z80 as their central processing unit (CPU). It was also widely used in home computers, such as the MSX range, SORD, and the Amstrad CPC, as well as in many arcade games. Additionally, it was also used in other applications such as industrial control systems, and embedded systems. The Z80 was widely used until the mid-1980s, when it was gradually replaced by newer microprocessors such as the Intel 80286 and the Motorola 68000. The design was licensed to Synertek and Mostek as well as the European SGS.

The Z80s instruction set is binary compatible with the Intel 8080, so that 8080 code such as the CP/M Operating System and Intel's PL/M compiler for the 8080 can run unmodified on the Z80. The Z80 had many enhancements over the 8080 such as 16-bit data movement instructions, block copy and block I/O instructions, single bit addressing of all registers, IX/IY offset registers, better interrupt system and a complete duplicate register file for context switching during an interrupt.

Source: WikiPedia
Technical Details
Released 1983 Brand Mattel Type Mattel Name Mattel Aquarius CPU Class Z80 CPU Zilog Z80 @3.58MHz Memory RAM: 4kB
RAM max: 20kB
Sound Chip General Instruments AY-3-8914 Programmable Sound Generator Sound 3 wave channels + white noise Display Chip none Display 40x24 text
32x24 16 color text, pattern based
256x192 16 color, 2 color per 8 pix.
Best Text 40x24 Best Color 16 colors (2 per 8 pixels) Best Graphics 256x192 in 16 colors Sprites none
Related Systems
 
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Mattel  Aquarius (1983)
Related Media
 
Z80 CPU
Collection of books on the Z80 8-bit CPU used in various home-computers
World Wide Web Links
 
WikiPedia: General Instrument AY-3-8910
Wikipage about the AY-3-8910 and compatible Programmable Sound Generators
 
Wikipedia: The Z80 CPU
Wikipedia page on the very popular Z80 8-bit CPU used in many computers of the 1980's era.