Saved an Aquarius from a hipster

[orion1052003]

The seller said, "If she had to ask can you hook it up to a TV, maybe you're better off with it." I didn't necessarily want it, or have the space. But I didn't want all those original boxes and hardware to go to waste. 

[orion1052003]

[+save2600]

Wow!  

 

 

[EdgeOfPortal]

Nice find! Your first Aquarius?

[jaybird3rd]

You've done a good deed!  You mentioned that you didn't necessarily want these, so if you'd like to resell any or all of those items, just let me know; I'm collecting box and manual scans for my website, and a few of those would be useful to me.  In any event, thanks for rescuing them!

[EdgeOfPortal]

9 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

You've done a good deed!  You mentioned that you didn't necessarily want these, so if you'd like to resell any or all of those items, just let me know; I'm collecting box and manual scans for my website, and a few of those would be useful to me.  In any event, thanks for rescuing them!

Yeah, if you decide to get rid of them, give them to jaybird3rd first. He’s working on a really good site for Aquarius Info. Jay, if you do end up getting them though and you’re not keeping it for yourself after scanning, perhaps you could sell

me the outer box and printer? Missing that bundle.

[jaybird3rd]

1 minute ago, EdgeOfPortal said:

Yeah, if you decide to get rid of them, give them to jaybird3rd first. He’s working on a really good site for Aquarius Info. Jay, if you do end up getting them though and you’re not keeping it for yourself after scanning, perhaps you could sell

me the outer box and printer? Missing that bundle.

Absolutely!  I've got a few other items that will also be passed on to other collectors after I'm done scanning them.

[orion1052003]

Yes. Never had an Aquarius before. I wonder if the controllers would be compatible with the Intellivision. Obviously it doesn't have the same number of keys. Is there an Aquarius multicart? Are the game ROMS the same kilobyte size as Intellivision? Meaning are games like Astrosmash basically interchangeable between Aquarius and Intellivision or does the Aquarius have very slightly better graphics?

 

Jaybird3rd, I can't promise anything just yet, but you have dibs if I sell anything. It would be good to help out a definitive Aquarius website.

[EdgeOfPortal]

Just now, orion1052003 said:

Yes. Never had an Aquarius before. I wonder if the controllers would be compatible with the Intellivision. Obviously it doesn't have the same number of keys. Is there an Aquarius multicart? Are the game ROMS the same kilobyte size as Intellivision? Meaning are games like Astrosmash basically interchangeable between Aquarius and Intellivision or does the Aquarius have very slightly better graphics?

 

Jaybird3rd, I can't promise anything just yet, but you have dibs if I sell anything. It would be good to help out a definitive Aquarius website.

Actually, Jaybird3rd created the Aquaricart, a fully featured multicart.

[EdgeOfPortal]

3 minutes ago, orion1052003 said:

Yes. Never had an Aquarius before. I wonder if the controllers would be compatible with the Intellivision. Obviously it doesn't have the same number of keys. Is there an Aquarius multicart? Are the game ROMS the same kilobyte size as Intellivision? Meaning are games like Astrosmash basically interchangeable between Aquarius and Intellivision or does the Aquarius have very slightly better graphics?

 

Jaybird3rd, I can't promise anything just yet, but you have dibs if I sell anything. It would be good to help out a definitive Aquarius website.

As for the rest, I don’t believe the controllers are compatible with intellivision (don’t quote me on that). The intellivision actually has better graphics than the Aquarius, and if you’re asking if intellivision carts work with the Aquarius, unfortunately they do not. 

[orion1052003]

I know the cartridge size is different, I just meant the software side of things. Like, does the Aquarius have an exec rom and similar operating system to the Intellivision? Or is it a completely different system, what kind of BASIC does it run?

[EdgeOfPortal]

Just now, orion1052003 said:

I know the cartridge size is different, I just meant the software side of things. Like, does the Aquarius have an exec rom and similar operating system to the Intellivision? Or is it a completely different system, what kind of BASIC does it run?

So, it runs a cut-down version of Microsoft Basic. Later Aquarius systems had a second version of Basic built in that fixed a few things. A very-rare extended basic cartridge was also released with quite a few more commands available. Extended Basic was also available with the Aquarius II, which is very, very rare.

[orion1052003]

I think the computer manual mentions the extended basic. So was David Rolfe and the Bkue Sky Rangers involved in creating the Aquarius? I think it was a prize on Starcade back in the day.

[EdgeOfPortal]

Just now, orion1052003 said:

I think the computer manual mentions the extended basic. So was David Rolfe and the Bkue Sky Rangers involved in creating the Aquarius? I think it was a prize on Starcade back in the day.

Yeah. @BSRSteve actually did the port of Utopia I think.

[jaybird3rd]

38 minutes ago, orion1052003 said:

Yes. Never had an Aquarius before. I wonder if the controllers would be compatible with the Intellivision. Obviously it doesn't have the same number of keys. Is there an Aquarius multicart? Are the game ROMS the same kilobyte size as Intellivision? Meaning are games like Astrosmash basically interchangeable between Aquarius and Intellivision or does the Aquarius have very slightly better graphics?

The thing to remember about the Aquarius is that it was not designed by Mattel.  A company called Radofin (which also manufactured the Intellivision hardware for Mattel) had already begun work on the Aquarius on its own; Mattel simply licensed it and sold it under their name.  This means that, although the Aquarius bears a superficial resemblance to the Intellivision, they are very different machines.

 

For example, the Aquarius is a Z80-based computer with an 8K implementation of Microsoft BASIC built in, but there are no game-specific routines like those in the Intellivision's EXEC.  The hand controllers are a similar design to the Intellivision's—and I actually find them more comfortable to use because they're so much thinner—but they are not directly compatible; the connector pinout and the encodings are all slightly different.  The Aquarius cartridge ROMs range in size from 4K to 16K, but the cartridges are not interchangeable with the Intellivision.  The Aquarius uses character-based graphics, so unfortunately, its graphics capabilities are limited to the contents of its built-in character set (and the ingenuity of the programmers in creatively using them).  Games like Astrosmash, Snafu, and Utopia are very similar to their Intellivision counterparts, but other games benefited more from the Intellivision's sprite-based design and actually look better on the Intellivision.  Unfortunately, the Aquarius did not enjoy a long enough retail life to get many exclusive games of its own, which is why its small library is so heavy with Intellivision conversions.  (However, I still plan to remedy that someday with some new Aquarius games of my own!)

 

Quote

Jaybird3rd, I can't promise anything just yet, but you have dibs if I sell anything. It would be good to help out a definitive Aquarius website.

Thank you very much!  I'll let everyone know when the site is (finally!) ready to go live.

[EdgeOfPortal]

6 minutes ago, jaybird3rd said:

The thing to remember about the Aquarius is that it was not designed by Mattel.  A company called Radofin (which also manufactured the Intellivision hardware for Mattel) had already begun work on the Aquarius; Mattel simply licensed it and sold it under their name.  This means that, although the Aquarius bears a superficial resemblance to the Intellivision, they are very different machines.

 

For example, the Aquarius is a Z80-based computer with an 8K implementation of Microsoft BASIC built in, but there are no game-specific routines like those in the Intellivision's EXEC.  The hand controllers are a similar design to the Intellivision's—and I actually find them more comfortable because they're so much thinner—but they are not directly compatible; the connector pinout and the encodings are all slightly different.  The Aquarius cartridge ROMs range in size from 4K to 16K, but the cartridges are not interchangeable with the Intellivision.  The Aquarius uses character-based graphics, so unfortunately, its graphics capabilities are limited to the contents of its built-in character set (and the ingenuity of the programmers in creatively using them).  Games like Astrosmash, Snafu, and Utopia are very similar to their Intellivision counterparts, but other games benefited more from the Intellivision's sprite-based design and actually look better on the Intellivision.  Unfortunately, the Aquarius did not enjoy a long enough retail life to get many exclusive games of its own, which is why its small library is so heavy with Intellivision conversions.  (However, I still plan to remedy that someday with some new Aquarius games of my own!)

 

Thank you very much!

Agreed on controller comfortability. It’s also worth mentioning the Aquarius has very little RAM available by default. 1.7 KB  because the other 2.3 KB is taken up by Basic, and the character set. Speaking of RAM, make sure to test out your 16K Ram. You can test to see if it has all RAM available by typing ‘Print fre(0)’ into BASIC. Personally, I’ve noticed that quite a few 16K carts have been failing lately. If you look through this forum, there’s quite a few topics discussing it. I actually had mine fail today. It has all RAM available, but it doesn’t work for some reason. I tested a 16K cassette, and it couldn’t load onto the cartridge. Note that the cassette functioned fine when paired with Jay’s unofficial 32K cart. So, make sure yours is working fine.

[orion1052003]

Ok. Can you fire and move simultaneously? You have to fire and move separately in Intellivision. Meaning one after another. Unless you modify the controller with 2 matrices jammed inside one shell. What's the biggest basic program the machine can handle?

[EdgeOfPortal]

7 minutes ago, orion1052003 said:

Ok. Can you fire and move simultaneously? You have to fire and move separately in Intellivision. Meaning one after another. Unless you modify the controller with 2 matrices jammed inside one shell. What's the biggest basic program the machine can handle?

Not sure about largest. I’ve seen some pretty good stuff. Someone made a Tetris clone, someone on the Aquarius Computer subreddit made a drawing program, there was also a scan of the Aquarius Program Book from 1983 on the Internet Archive if you want to try those.

[jaybird3rd]

15 minutes ago, orion1052003 said:

Ok. Can you fire and move simultaneously? You have to fire and move separately in Intellivision. Meaning one after another. Unless you modify the controller with 2 matrices jammed inside one shell. What's the biggest basic program the machine can handle?

Yes, Aquarius Night Stalker allows you to walk and shoot at the same time.  (They went out of their way to point that out in the manual at least four times, too, as I recall.)  That limitation of the Intellivision was because the Intellivision hand controllers generated conflicting Gray codes, but the Aquarius controllers are a highly simplified design—six action keys, and no side action buttons—so there are fewer conflicts.

 

Aquarius BASIC reserves a portion of the internal RAM for its own use, but if you have an expanded RAM module, it should be able to use all of it.  I don't know off the top what the largest BASIC program was, or the highest possible line number, but most programs were written for 16K modules, since that was the largest most Aquarius owners had at the time (there were very few original 32K modules produced).

[BSRSteve]

3 hours ago, orion1052003 said:

I think the computer manual mentions the extended basic. So was David Rolfe and the Bkue Sky Rangers involved in creating the Aquarius? I think it was a prize on Starcade back in the day.

David Rolfe was certainly not involved in Aquarius in any way. AFAIK, I was the only person with Intellivision game experience that did an Aquarius title. I actually ported Utopia using a C cross-compiler, as I was unfamiliar with Z-80 assembly language, and had used higher-level languages before (though not C). Eventually, I had to go in to the assembly language output of the compiler to optimize, as the cross-compiler was not very efficient (at least for space). That process got me sufficiently up to speed on Z-80 to enable to move on to a Colecovision title.

[mr_me]

4 hours ago, EdgeOfPortal said:

So, it runs a cut-down version of Microsoft Basic. Later Aquarius systems had a second version of Basic built in that fixed a few things. A very-rare extended basic cartridge was also released with quite a few more commands available. Extended Basic was also available with the Aquarius II, which is very, very rare.

Standard basic is a complete microsoft basic.  The extended basic cartridge added an improved editor, an arc tangent command, and some graphics commands. 

 

2 hours ago, orion1052003 said:

Ok. Can you fire and move simultaneously? You have to fire and move separately in Intellivision. Meaning one after another. Unless you modify the controller with 2 matrices jammed inside one shell. What's the biggest basic program the machine can handle?

The Intellivision side action buttons can be used at the same time as the disc.  So with most cartridges you can shoot and move at the same time.  A few intellivision cartridges had shoot actions on the keypad which interfered with the disc.

 

With Aquarius controllers some buttons can be used while pressing the disc but others should interfere with the disc.

Edited February 11, 2020 by mr_me

[+thanatos]

If you didn't want it, you won't want it once you start playing the games.    Though Tron might be one of the best examples it had.  

But you should have no problem selling boxed hardware.

 

[BassGuitari]

51 minutes ago, thanatos said:

If you didn't want it, you won't want it once you start playing the games.    Though Tron might be one of the best examples it had.  

But you should have no problem selling boxed hardware.

 

I think Aquarius games play pretty well--they're just kinda ugly and there aren't very many of them. 😜

[orion1052003]

The games are pretty bad? How about programming on it?

[jaybird3rd]

8 hours ago, orion1052003 said:

How about programming on it?

I think Aquarius BASIC is pretty respectable as far as 1980s BASIC interpreters go.  It's still orders of magnitude slower than assembly language, of course, but it's considerably faster than TI BASIC (and as someone who first learned programming on my beloved TI 99/4A, I should know).  Since it's Microsoft BASIC, it also makes it easier to adapt BASIC programs written for other computers.  I've heard people say that Aquarius BASIC is so stripped down that it lacks FOR-NEXT loops and other such nonsense, but this isn't true; all the necessary features are there.  Aquarius Extended BASIC does add a few niceties: the ability to edit previously-entered lines of code, various line-drawing and circle-drawing commands, relocating the cursor, defining subroutines, a rudimentary menuing system, etc.  That said, you can still do a lot with plain Aquarius BASIC (and maybe some inline assembly code), especially if you have a memory module.

 

However, you do NOT want to have to do a lot of typing on that rubber keyboard.  A while back, I started a thread on Aquarius BASIC programming, and there I described an alternative workflow which allows you to edit code on a modern PC with your favorite text editor and then "quick type" it into the Virtual Aquarius emulator for testing.  To transfer the program to a stock Aquarius, you'll have to go through the cassette interface, but there are ways to do that also, as I describe here.