Page "Aster CT-80" Paragraph 13

After designing their own fully functional replacement for the TRS-80 expansion interface ( which was never commercialized ) the company realized that they could do better than just re-designing the expansion interface.

They observed that the TRS-80 was a great computer but it lacked in several areas.

The display logic and resulting display ' snow ' was irritating, as was the missing lower case support, the CPU speed could be improved, the quality and layout of the keyboard was bothersome, and the floppy disk capacity and reliability was low.

Also the more interesting software offered for CP / M systems could not run well on a TRS-80.

So they decided to designed a TRS-80 and CP / M software compatible computer system, which ( following the lead of Apple Computer ) they decided to name after a " typical Dutch flower ".

So they called it the Aster CT-80 ( CP / M / Tandy-1980 ).

Why they went with Aster, and not the more well known Tulip is unknown, perhaps they thought it would be to presumptuous, or perhaps the fact that " Aster " is also a Dutch girls name has something to do with it.

Remarkably " Aster " was also the name given to a Dutch Supercomputer much later, in 2002.