SV-318

SV-318
Type Home computer
Release date 1983 (Winter CES, Las Vegas)
Media ROM Cartridge, cassette tape, 5¼-inch floppy disks
Operating system Microsoft Extended BASIC
CPU Zilog Z80A @ 3.6 MHz
Memory 16 KB (+16 KB video memory)
Display 256×192 resolution, 16 colours
Input Keyboard
Successor SV-328

The SV-318 was the basic model of the Spectravideo range. It was fitted with a chiclet style keyboard, difficult to use, alongside which sat a combination cursor pad/joystick. This was a disc-shaped affair with a hole in the centre; put a red plastic 'stick' in the hole and it was a built-in joystick, remove the stick and it was a directional arrow pad for word processing etc. This machine also had only 16 kb of user RAM (plus an additional 16 kb of video RAM), which limited its usefulness, though this could be expanded via an external peripheral box.

This machine was basically identical to its big brother the SV-328, the only differences being in the keyboard and amount of memory. The ROM, expandability, mainboard and case of the two machines were identical.

Reference to the operating system Microsoft Extended BASIC is not to be confused with MSX BASIC, although some marketing at the time claimed that Microsoft Extended is what MSX stood for. The SV-318 is not fully compliant with the MSX standard.

In 1983 Spectravideo announced the SV-603 ColecoVision Video Game Adapter for the SV-318. The company stated that the $70 product allowed users to "enjoy the entire library of exciting ColecoVision video-game cartridges".[1]

System specs

References

  1. "Heavy Hardware". Softline. 1983-03. p. 46. Retrieved 28 July 2014. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. "The history of Spectravideo". 2008. Retrieved 2009-07-17.

External links

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