Based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor, the system has a rubber chiclet keyboard, 4K of RAM, and a subset of Microsoft BASIC in ROM.

[1] Looking to compete in the home computer market, Mattel Electronics turned to Radofin, the Hong Kong based manufacturer of their Intellivision consoles.

The Aquarius was often bundled with the Mini-Expander peripheral, which added game pads, an additional cartridge port for memory expansion, and the General Instrument AY-3-8910 sound chip.

Less common first party peripherals include a 300 baud cartridge modem, 32k RAM cart, 4 color plotter, and Quick Disk drive.

[5] Internally, Mattel programmers adopted Bob Del Principe's mock slogan, "Aquarius -a system for the seventies".

As a magazine of the time put it, "The Aquarius suffered one of the shortest lifespans of any computer—it was discontinued by Mattel almost as soon as it hit store shelves, a victim of the 1983 home computer price wars.

Multiple homebrew games were thus published scores of years after-the-fact,[8] and development and niche user interest in Aquarius software continues, using surviving original hardware, FPGA reimplementations, and emulators.

Technically identical to the previous version, the Aquarius II came with a 16 KB RAM extension, mechanical keyboard and Extended Basic.