- Spectravideo
Spectravideo, or SVI, was a
U.S. computer company founded in1981 as "SpectraVision" by Harry Fox. They originally madevideo game s forAtari 2600 andVIC-20 . Some of their computers wereMSX -compliant orIBM PC compatible .Their first attempt at a computer was an add-on for the
Atari 2600 called the SpectravideoCompuMate , with amembrane keyboard and very simple programmability. Their first real computers were theSV-318 andSV-328 , released in1983 . 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, 16KB of each reserved for video) and keyboard style. The mainoperating system , residing in ROM, was a version ofMicrosoft Extended Basic , but if the computer was equipped with a floppy drive, the user had the option to boot withCP/M instead. These two computers were precedent toMSX 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 optionalhardware , for example an adapter making it possible to runColecoVision 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 asSpectravideo X'Press 16 ). It was a PC and MSX2 in the same device.Today the Spectravideo name is used by a UK based company called SpectraVideo Plc, formerly known as Ash & Newman.It was founded in 1977, and bought the Spectravideo brand name from Bondwell (SVI owner) in 1988. They sell their own range of Logic3 branded products, and don't have any connections to the old Spectravideo products.
External links
*
* http://www.spectravideo.com/
* http://www.samdal.com/spectravideo.htm
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
