History
SpectraVision was founded in 1981 by Harry Fox and Oscar Jutzeler as a distributor of computer games, contracting external developers to write the software. Their main products were gaming cartridges for the Atari 2600 VCS, Colecovision and Commodore VIC-20. They also made the world's first ergonomic joystick, the Quickshot. In late 1982 the company was renamed to Spectravideo due to a naming conflict with OnCommand's Hotel TV system called SpectraVision.
In the early 1980s, the company developed 11 games for the Atari 2600, including several titles of some rarity: Chase the Chuckwagon, Mangia and Bumper Bash. A few of their titles were only available through the Columbia House music club.
The company's first attempt at a computer was an add-on for the Atari 2600 called the Spectravideo CompuMate, with a membrane keyboard and very simple programmability.
Their first real computers were the SV-318 and SV-328, released in 1983. Both were powered by a Z80 A at 3.6 MHz, but differed in the amount of RAM (SV-318 had 32KB and SV-328 had 80KB total, of which 16KB was reserved for video) and keyboard style. The main operating system, residing in ROM, was a version of Microsoft Extended Basic, but if the computer was equipped with a floppy drive, the user had the option to boot with CP/M instead. These two computers were precedent to MSX and not fully compatible with the standard, though the changes made to their design to create MSX were minor. The system had a wide range of optional hardware, for example an adapter making it possible to run ColecoVision games on the SVI.
A later version, the Spectravideo SVI-728 was made MSX compatible.
SVI-738, also MSX compatible, came with a built-in 360 KB 3.5" floppy drive.
The last computer produced by Spectravideo was the SVI-838 (also known as Spectravideo X'Press 16). It was a PC and MSX2 in the same device.
Read more about this topic: Spectravideo
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