Spectravideo SVI-328

The Commodore 64’s rival from Hong Kong

In the early 1980s, home computers began to find their way into homes around the world. Computers were no longer just tools for engineers or universities, but quickly became a window into the new digital age for schoolchildren and hobbyists. One of these machines was the Spectravideo SVI-328. Designed by the American company Spectravideo and originally manufactured in Hong Kong, it was released in 1983. The SVI-328 went on sale in Finland in 1984, and its price ranged from around 2,000 to 3,000 Finnish marks (approximately 700 to 900 euros in today’s money, taking inflation into account). Although it was not the cheapest machine on the market, its technical features and high-quality construction made it an attractive alternative to the Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, for example. Spectravideo computers were imported to Finland by Teknopiste and sold in large home appliance stores and bookstores, among other places. The Spectravideo SVI-328 was particularly popular for programming studies, as its BASIC interpreter was considered clear. It had a more versatile command set than, for example, the Commodore 64 computer.

Precursor to the standard

Although the SVI-328 was advanced in many ways, it had its shortcomings because it was not MSX-compatible. The device was the model for devices utilizing the MSX standard, which came onto the market in particularly large numbers between 1983 and 1985. Many technical solutions were transferred to the MSX-1 standard, but unfortunately for SpectraVideo, the software was not directly compatible. Therefore, the device had a rather limited software selection. Compatibility would have made it possible to run MSX programs on the machine. Compared to, for example, the Commodore 64 or MSX machines, the SVI-328 had fewer games and commercial programs. The SVI-328 was not fully MSX-compatible, even though its graphics and sound chips were the same as the MSX standard, which lagged behind the Commodore 64 computer in terms of graphics and sound capabilities.

Spectravideo published its own games and software, such as drawing programs, language learning programs, word processing programs, and environments for learning programming. C-cassettes were the most common storage format, but a 5.25″ floppy disk drive was also available as an accessory, which was rare and valuable at the time. The computer also had a module port and Atari-compatible joystick ports. The device also supported floppy disk drives, but they were expensive and rarely seen in use. The keyboard was good for its time, as it was a typewriter keyboard. The SVI-328 was relatively popular in Finland. It was considered a reliable and technically “serious” option. Although it never achieved the same phenomenon as the Commodore 64, it left its mark on Finnish microcomputer enthusiasts in the 1980s.

Perhaps the first computer war ever in Finland was in 1984 when Mikrobitti magazine published a highly emotional and controversial comparison between the Spectravideo 328 and the Commodore 64. This comparison is still well remembered among enthusiasts. At the time, it sparked a lot of discussion and stirred up emotions among readers of Mikrobitti magazine (issue 3/1984).