Spectravideo

For Christmas 1983 me and my brother desperately wanted a Commodore 64 computer. Unfortunately, C64s were completely sold out when we finally talked our parents into buying one. Instead a Spectravideo SVI-318 was loaded onto Santa Claus's sled. The SVI is far better than a C64, the salesperson told us: "It is a personal computer and that is superior to a home computer". I still believe he was right, but hey, I was 13 years old and I wanted to play video games! There were two games that came with the Spectravideo: "Spectron" and "Armoured Assault". For quite a while those were the only video games I played (actually "Armoured Assault" was awfully boring). Then I began to discover the power of BASIC and wrote my own video games...

Last week I came across the unofficial Spectravideo Homepage and I was feeling like being 13 again when I discovered the Spectravideoemulator! I found some of my old tapes (yes, audiotapes were a main storage medium those days) and converted some of my programs by means of the SVIWav2Cas tool.

23rd January 2004

Lars Lewejohann

	Assiduity
	This one was written in 1984 (if you load it and type "list-60" you see an early attempt of writing a copyright statement. It reads "Printed 1984 by Lars Lewejohann" :-). Assiduity has four levels. While level one and two were highly inspired by "Donkey Kong", level three (inspired by "Jungle Jim") and level four (I can't recall where this one came from) seem to be completely unconnected to the plot. Anyway, making your own videogames seems to let you overestimate the skill of others who might play the game some day. When I rediscovered "Assiduity", I was not even able to complete level two myself. Type "881 goto 2400" and press 'Enter' before you run this in order to directly start with level three :-).
	Hollow
	"Hollow" was my first commercial software product! Meanwhile the salesperson (see above) has written a German book about the "Spectravideo" including loads of listings that the reader was supposed to manually enter into his computer. I was happy to receive 300 DM (~150 Euro) and "Hollow" was published in that book. I am still wondering if anybody ever took the effort to type down all lines of source code. Unfortunately, I lost my copy of that book. The author's name is "Rainer Lüers" and the publisher is "Data Becker". I don't remember the title of that book, but I'm sure there is some "Spectravideo" in it. If anybody by any chance has a copy of that book, please contact me!
	Struggle for Livelihood
	"Struggle for Livelihood" is a 10 level jump&run action game. Well, whatever that means. You have to guide five astronauts that are stuck on a distant planet through different rooms and have them collect "fruits". Watch out for the mean fungivorous sporocloud!
	Pogo Stick
	This is a "I can't believe it's BASIC" game. The Spectravideo had 32 so called "sprites" (moveable graphic objects - the Spectravideo manual, however, refers to sprites as "a magic genie you can create and easily control"). Each sprite had a maximum of 16 by 16 pixel in size and one color. The guy on that pogo stick is composed of 11 individual sprites that move as one. Actually I never finished this one completely. Nevertheless, it is playable although there is no goal...