Spectravideo

Spectravideo, or SVI, was a U.S. computer company founded in 1981 as "SpectraVision". They originally made video games for Atari 2600 and VIC-20. Some of their computers were MSX-compliant or IBM PC compatible.

Their 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, 16KB of each 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 a Colecovision-adapter making it possible to run the Coleco games on the SVI.

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