Jupiter Cantab Limited was a Cambridge based home computer company. Its main product was the 1983 Forth based Jupiter Ace.
The company was founded in 1982 by two ex-Sinclair Research staffers, Richard Altwasser and Steven Vickers. Their machine was, externally, remarkably similar to the ZX Spectrum, with a copycat rubber keyboard. It also used the same Z80 processor. However, the Ace's video output was limited to monochrome, unlike the Spectrum's 8 colour capability.
The £90 Ace was a flop in both the UK and US markets: the Forth language, although considered powerful, was not as popular or accessible as the already well-established BASIC language featured in competing microcomputers. In the US it was sold as the Ace 4000.
The company went bankrupt in November 1983 and its assets were sold to Boldfield Computing Ltd in 1984. The remaining hardware was sold-off into 1985.
Famous quotes containing the word jupiter:
“I stand for the heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be a fool with a heart, than Jupiter Olympus with his head. The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)