the TRS-80 was also supported, so 256 x 192 pixels (in 32x16 character mode), or 320 x 300 pixels (in 40x25 character mode) were also possible. The video card also supported 16 foreground and 16 background colors per character, by providing one byte per character position (2K) of "color ram". One nibble of such a byte then controlled the foreground color, and the other nibble controlled the background color, a system very similar to the ZX Spectrum, in fact in the 256x192 mode the display mode was virtually identical to the video of the ZX Spectrum. The color memory was also available in the "normal" TRS-80 and CP/M text modes, which meant that existing TRS-80 and CP/M software could be easily modified to add color. This video card would also support fast scrolling of high resolution color screens for games, because it had the indirection of the character pointers, so it was possible to quickly scroll the high resolution display, (or use other effects) by simply manipulating the 1920/1024 bytes of text video instead of the 24,576 bytes of high-resolution video memory. A hard disk interface was also in the works, which would, add a SCSI interface, and the necessary software. A working prototype was developed that added a 40MB hard disk. On the software front, work was being done to implement the replacement for the aging "user interface" of CP/M, (the Command Console Processor CCP) with the more modern ZCPR. Finally a replacement for the aging Z80 processor was being developed in the form of an Intel 8086 board, and additional 512K 16 bit memory boards. Such replacements of CPU and memory system components were possible because the Aster CT-80 was designed to use a backplane that was designed to support both 8 and 16 bit processors, and used a modular Eurocard based design with slots to spare for expansion. In theory the system could support the Z80 and the 8086 simultaneously. Plans were formulated to support CP/M-86 and even MS-DOS. Unfortunately none of these extensions to the system became available because the company folded before any of them could be released. External links Pictures of the Aster CT-80 model one from a Spanish computer museum, the educational model with an opening for a cassette player is the one on the right A picture of the Aster CT-80 model two used for a business application A picture of the