I know there has been a lot of discussion about this and people trying to get the original cricut because it is on sale so much so I thought I would post this link.
It has the press release and all the links needed to answer questions.
Hope it helps. PLEASE NOTE this news release was back in July 2010.

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20100714006262&newsLang=en