Mattel Aquarius character set
When Mattel decided to market a home computer, it did not start by designing one, and instead looked around for a pre-made system it could market under its name. It discovered that one of its manufacturing partners, the Hong Kong based Radofin Electronics Far East, had already designed a three-system line of home computers. All Mattel had to do was secure the U.S. marketing rights, which it promptly did for the first two units in the line, and have Radofin handle the manufacturing.[1]
The simplest unit, originally code-named "Checkers" and which was eventually named the Aquarius (Model #5931), did have some good things going for it. The 13.5 x 6 x 2 inch unit was equipped with the same Z-80A microprocessor used in many other home and business computers of the era (although some units had a different but still Z-80A compatible processor, like the NEC D780C or the Hitachi HD64180); it had built-in BASIC, being a subset of full Microsoft BASIC; it had the ability to utilize cartridge-based games and other software; and, it had a color video display (16 foreground and 16 background colors, with 40 character x 24 line text). But it also featured a mere 4K of RAM (along with its 8K of ROM) with only about 1.7K free for BASIC programs, a "chicklet" keyboard with just 48 keys (on an 8-line-in, 6-line-out matrix) and a reset button, a one-voice tone generator for sound, no programmable graphics, no sprites, no game controllers, no monitor port (it attached to a TV only), a non-standard printer interface, ordinary cassette access at 600 baud, and no expansion capability except for what could be plugged into the cartridge port. Given that the unit was introduced in 1983, these features did not make it strongly competitive in the home computer market.[1]
To address some of the limitations, Mattel added a larger character set to the original Radofin design, so that games could use character graphics.[1]
Character set
The following table shows the Mattel Aquarius character set. Each character is shown with a potential Unicode equivalent if available. Space characters are represented by the abbreviations for their names.
_0 | _1 | _2 | _3 | _4 | _5 | _6 | _7 | _8 | _9 | _A | _B | _C | _D | _E | _F | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
0_ 0 |
£ 00A3 |
½ 00BD |
¼ 00BC |
¾ 00BE |
÷ 00F7 |
© 00A9 |
→ 2192 |
← 2190 |
↑ 2191 |
↓ 2193 |
↗ 2197 |
↙ 2199 |
↘ 2198 |
↖ 2196 |
� |
� |
1_ 16 |
� |
� |
▮ 25AE |
� |
� |
� |
� |
� |
� |
� |
▗ 2597 |
▝ 259D |
▖ 2596 |
▘ 2598 |
▚ 259A |
▄ 2584 |
2_ 32 |
SP 0020 |
! 0021 |
" 0022 |
# 0023 |
$ 0024 |
% 0025 |
& 0026 |
' 0027 |
( 0028 |
) 0029 |
* 002A |
+ 002B |
, 002C |
- 002D |
. 002E |
/ 002F |
3_ 48 |
0 0030 |
1 0031 |
2 0032 |
3 0033 |
4 0034 |
5 0035 |
6 0036 |
7 0037 |
8 0038 |
9 0039 |
: 003A |
; 003B |
< 003C |
= 003D |
> 003E |
? 003F |
4_ 64 |
@ 0040 |
A 0041 |
B 0042 |
C 0043 |
D 0044 |
E 0045 |
F 0046 |
G 0047 |
H 0048 |
I 0049 |
J 004A |
K 004B |
L 004C |
M 004D |
N 004E |
O 004F |
5_ 80 |
P 0050 |
Q 0051 |
R 0052 |
S 0053 |
T 0054 |
U 0055 |
V 0056 |
W 0057 |
X 0058 |
Y 0059 |
Z 005A |
[ 005B |
\ 005C |
] 005D |
^ 005E |
_ 005F |
6_ 96 |
` 0060 |
a 0061 |
b 0062 |
c 0063 |
d 0064 |
e 0065 |
f 0066 |
g 0067 |
h 0068 |
i 0069 |
j 006A |
k 006B |
l 006C |
m 006D |
n 006E |
o 006F |
7_ 112 |
p 0070 |
q 0071 |
r 0072 |
s 0073 |
t 0074 |
u 0075 |
v 0076 |
w 0077 |
x 0078 |
y 0079 |
z 007A |
{ 007B |
| 007C |
} 007D |
~ 007E |
█ 2588 |
8_ 128 |
▇ 2587 |
▏ 258F |
� |
� |
🮏 1FB8F |
🮌 1FB8C |
▒ 2592 |
● 25CF |
▂ 2582 |
▆ 2586 |
♠ 2660 |
� |
� |
� |
▶ 25B6 |
▲ 25B2 |
9_ 144 |
▁ 2581 |
▉ 2589 |
� |
� |
🮎 1FB8E |
🮍 1FB8D |
⬤ 2B24 |
▎ 258E |
▍ 258D |
▌ 258C |
� |
� |
� |
� |
◀ 25C0 |
▼ 25BC |
A_ 160 |
NBSP 00A0 |
![]() 1FB00 |
![]() 1FB01 |
![]() 1FB02 |
![]() 1FB03 |
![]() 1FB04 |
![]() 1FB05 |
![]() 1FB06 |
![]() 1FB07 |
![]() 1FB08 |
![]() 1FB09 |
![]() 1FB0A |
![]() 1FB0B |
![]() 1FB0C |
![]() 1FB0D |
![]() 1FB0E |
B_ 176 |
![]() 1FB0F |
![]() 1FB10 |
![]() 1FB11 |
![]() 1FB12 |
![]() 1FB13 |
![]() 258C |
![]() 1FB14 |
![]() 1FB15 |
![]() 1FB16 |
![]() 1FB17 |
![]() 1FB18 |
![]() 1FB19 |
![]() 1FB1A |
![]() 1FB1B |
![]() 1FB1C |
![]() 1FB1D |
C_ 192 |
◢ 25E2 |
◣ 25E3 |
� |
▊ 258A |
▪ 25AA |
♦ 2666 |
· 00B7 |
� |
┼ 253C |
� |
╱ 2571 |
� |
┴ 2534 |
├ 251C |
┐ 2510 |
└ 2514 |
D_ 208 |
� |
� |
� |
� |
♥ 2665 |
♣ 2663 |
│ 2502 |
� |
╳ 2573 |
� |
╲ 2572 |
� |
┬ 252C |
┤ 2524 |
┌ 250C |
┘ 2518 |
E_ 224 |
![]() 1FB1E |
![]() 1FB1F |
![]() 1FB20 |
![]() 1FB21 |
![]() 1FB22 |
![]() 1FB23 |
![]() 1FB24 |
![]() 1FB25 |
![]() 1FB26 |
![]() 1FB27 |
![]() 2590 |
![]() 1FB28 |
![]() 1FB29 |
![]() 1FB2A |
![]() 1FB2B |
![]() 1FB2C |
F_ 240 |
![]() 1FB2D |
![]() 1FB2E |
![]() 1FB2F |
![]() 1FB30 |
![]() 1FB31 |
![]() 1FB32 |
![]() 1FB33 |
![]() 1FB34 |
![]() 1FB35 |
![]() 1FB36 |
![]() 1FB37 |
![]() 1FB38 |
![]() 1FB39 |
![]() 1FB3A |
![]() 1FB3B |
█ 2588 |
Letter Number Punctuation Symbol Other Undefined � No Unicode equivalent
References
- Horvat/Parrish, "Mattel Aquarius FAQ," May 6, 2001.
- http://www.vdsteenoven.com/aquarius/
- "Figure 4. Mattel Aquarius character set", L2/19-025: Proposal to add characters from legacy computers and teletext to the UCS (PDF), 2019-01-04, p. 20
- Sources for L2/19-025 (PDF), 2019-01-04