Despite their initial success, the company faced financial troubles, and by 1988, operations ceased. Later, a UK-based company bought the Spectravideo brand name from Bondwell in 1988,[1] but this company, known as Logic3, had no connection to the original Spectravideo products and was dissolved in 2016.
History
The SV-318 has a built-in joystick.The QuickShot I joystick was introduced in 1982.
SpectraVision was founded in 1981 by Harry Fox and Alex Weiss as a distributor of computer games, contracting external developers to write the software. Their main products were gaming cartridges for the Atari 2600, Colecovision and VIC-20. They also made the world's first ergonomic[citation needed] joystick, the QuickShot. In late 1982 the company was renamed to Spectravideo due to a naming conflict with On Command Corporation's Hotel TV system called SpectraVision.[1]
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.[2]
A few of their titles were only available through the Columbia House music club.[3]
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.
Spectravideo's first real computers were the SV-318 and SV-328, released in 1983.[4][5] 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.
SpectraVideo also created the QuickShot SVI-2000 Robot Arm which could be connected to a Commodore 64 user port or be controlled stand-alone with two joysticks.
In May 1983, Spectravideo went public with the sale of 1 million shares of stock at $6.25 per share in an initial public offering underwritten by brokerage D. H. Blair & Co.[6]
However, Spectravideo quickly ran into trouble. By December 1983 its stock had fallen to 75 cents per share.[6] In March 1984, the company agreed to sell a 60% stake of itself to Hong Kong-based Bondwell Holding in a deal that would have also required the resignation of president Harry Fox and vice-president Alex Weiss.[7] That deal was set aside when Spectravideo was unable to restructure about $2.6 million worth of debt, and another deal where Fanon Courier U.S.A. Inc. would have purchased 80% of the company was struck in July.[8]
The Fanon Courier deal similarly fell through, and Fox resigned as president in September, with Bondwell Holding purchasing over half of the company's stock and installing Bondwell vice-president Christopher Chan as the new president.[9]
In May 1984 the Spectravideo SVI-728 was released. This was a MSX compatible machine.[1][10]
In 1985 the SVI-738, also MSX compatible was released.[1] The machine came with a built-in 360 KB 3.5" floppy drive.[11]
The last computer produced by Spectravideo was the SVI-838 (also known as Spectravideo X'Press 16), released in 1986.[1] It was compatible with both the PC and MSX2 standards.[12]
The Spectravideo name was used by a UK-based company called SpectraVideo Plc, formerly known as Ash & Newman. That company was founded in 1977, and bought the Spectravideo brand name from Bondwell in 1988. They sold a range of products branded as Logic3, and have no connection to the original Spectravideo products.[1] The company changed its name to Logic3 in 2006,[13] and entered administration in 2013 after a licensing deal with Ferrari proved to be a failure.[14] The company was formally dissolved on 19 April 2016.[13]
List of video games
There are 68 games for Spectravideo that are not compatible with MSX computers[15][16][17]
