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Is there any Spectravideo 328 software?

KG7PFS

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2016
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Location
Cave Junction, Oregon
According to http://www.samdal.com/svsoftware.htm there are about 11 applications for the SV328. All the rest is games. It's one of the most powerful computers of it's time, and the only thing with less applications available was the Atari 2600 (in spite of Spectravideo's efforts!).

Am I missing something? Is there another Spectravideo site on the internet? How good are these applications? Do they work with the RAM expansion, hard drive, or 80-column card?

Yes, I know about CP/M - see my post in the CP/M section - but CP/M isn't usually considered the best OS for a color and sound type computer.
 
not sure of color cp/m software.. but they ran the usual cm/p 2.2 software.. and also alot of mc games were ported to disk to boot..
 
Is there an English language forum for non-MSX (or MSX 0?) Spectravideo? I find it hard to believe that the second best home computer ever made is almost entirely unknown and may have almost no software. SVI must have sold a terminal program. (xmodem?) They did sell a modem. An early review mentioned Multiplan. Was it ever released? The samdal list includes what might be a database, what appears to be a graphics editor, and some home finance. There are no manual scans for any of the software, so I don't know how good, bad, both, or neither these apps are. Considering the quality of the hardware, I'm prepared to be amazed. Considering the amount of information available, I'm not getting my hopes up.
 
There is the forum linked to by Samdal at https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/spectravideoforum/ though that hasn't seen a post in over a year. Samdal has a copy of the cassette database program and the home finance. Download the archive and extract the cassette file and see for yourself. It looks like these applications didn't have much of a manual unless there was something printed on the inside of the cassette insert.

Images of the cassettes for some of the business software can be seen at http://thejakefinland.tripod.com/
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the link, I missed it.

Here's proof that they did have some kind of instructions.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Spectra-Ho...JcAAOSwmphcpm4W:sc:USPSFirstClass!97523!US!-1

This tape has a Coupon Manager and a Recipe Manager. (another auction for the same app shows the back of the box). Other software has been sold on ebay and shown with instruction books. I know they look a little thin, but Spectravideo's weak spot was documentation. Still, it's pretty bad when pictures on ebay are all the information I can get.

I suppose I could just order a 328 and some tapes and see what I get, but it seems stupid to spend $200 or more without knowing what I'm getting into - Amazing hardware and Basic or not.
 
Try it out with the emulator. You probably will be disappointed. Spectravideo marketing made a lot of promises that the software didn't have a chance to fulfill before Spectravideo's financial troubles.
 
This site has references to Disk Images:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/spectravideoforum/spectravideo-forum-f25917/index-s225.html

Which are:
Code:
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_CPMSS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_CPMDS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_SVDiskBasicDS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_ZCPR3.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi738/dsk_svi738cpm.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi738/dsk_svi738msxdos.zip

http://www.hansotten.com/msxsw.html
but, I can't locate those images. Do you know where they can be located, as google searches haven't located them for me.

Thanks.

Larry
 
Sorry Larry, I couldn't find any disk images either. Samdal and archive.org both have archives, but it's all .cas files. Oh well, I still like Spectravideo's hardware and Basic. If I can get one cheap I'll grab it.

Krebizfan, I wouldn't know what to do with an emulator if I had one. Never used one, quite possibly never will, unless it runs on an 8-bit.

Ok, if I can't find good software for "MSX 0" what about MSX 1 or 2? I know there were games, and Philips sold "At Ease" (or something like that) with a nice little desktop and some applications. How good, bad and/or indifferent were they ? Did anyone else sell an MSX app in English, or was it all games and Japanese stuff? Is it true that MSX DOS was CP/M compatible?
 
blueMSX would allow one to run Spectravideo programs from cassette or disk images on modern hardware. Gives one the chance to experience how the software works without spending the time and money needed to track down working real hardware and software.

MSXDOS version 1 has approximately the same API* as CP/M 2.2 but uses a variation on the FAT file system seen in MSDOS instead of the CP/M file system. Version 2 of MSXDOS added functions while CP/M 3 added different functions. http://paxangasoft.retroinvaders.com/othersoft/advent.html explains a few fixes for some of the problems caused by the differences. The vast majority of CP/M-80 2.2 programs should work on MSXDOS unchanged.

* I think functions like user areas were omitted from MSXDOS but very few normal CP/M programs used those.

http://www.icongames.com.br/msxfiles/apps-en.htm seems to show a few MSX1 and 2 applications in English. I think there was a lot more in languages other than English but maybe some will strike your fancy.
 
MSX has tons of good applications, not only japanese but also from dozens of countries. As the MSX standard spread all over the world, you'll find tools from american, european, arabic or asian countries, from the Holy Quran to japanese word-processors. Just electronic giants like Philips published a lot of apps for these machines.

MSX-DOS was a clone of CP/M mostly compatible; but you'll find also the classic CP/M versions in the MSX software catalog, you can find even the CP/M 3.0 for the MSX2 machines. So, if you're thinking in applications, CP/M itself gives you an incredible big list of good software.

Of course, SVI published his own CP/M version, so you'll benefit from all these titles; but only if you have an 80 columns card or you'll get a crippled experience. About the disks, its geometry was a little tricky and they're hard to backup. I'll check what I have, I think I keep some of these SVI disk images...
 
This site has references to Disk Images:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/spectravideoforum/spectravideo-forum-f25917/index-s225.html

Which are:
Code:
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_CPMSS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_CPMDS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_SVDiskBasicDS.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi328/dsk_ZCPR3.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi738/dsk_svi738cpm.zip
http://www.bluemsx.com/dev_download/svi738/dsk_svi738msxdos.zip

http://www.hansotten.com/msxsw.html
but, I can't locate those images. Do you know where they can be located, as google searches haven't located them for me.

Thanks.

Larry

This might help:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/CP-M-Boot-...hash=item33f564f9f5:m:mDeZr4QmlRUBV9efV-Uy8dQ
 
With extra hardware (say, a RAM cartridge with memory mapper), you can break the theoretical 4MB limit a standard mapper can handle. I've a Playsonic cart that comes with 12MB RAM (!), although I've never plugged it in a MSX1 machine, I can't think a reason why it can't work.
 
FOUR MEGABYTES!!!???

I think that will be enough. Is there any good application software that will use the extra memory? On some 8-bits, anything beyond 64k (if that) is ramdisk. Others can task-switch, multitask, use the whole 64k for one program with lots of features and put data in another bank, and/or have multiple documents open in one program.
 
Yep, at least for MSX machines you'll find SymbOS, an advanced 8-bit multi-tasking OS that can easily manage 1MB RAM, you can open several apps without effort. Above the 1MB barrier, I remember playing videos and using the huge 12MB upgrade as cache (I suppose).
Usually the official 4MB mappers are more than enough...
 
There is at least one SVI disk still available online here, if you drill down to the OS images page.
 
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