I have the main unit and keyboard.
type Computer
country USA
year 1986
os MS-DOS 2.11, CP/M-86, MSX2 (hyprid)
cpu Intel 8088
speed 4.77 MHz
ram 256 KB
disk 2 x 5.1/4″ 360 KB
graphic CGA 640 x 200, MSX2 256 x 212
colors CGA 2, MSX2 256
sound General Instrument AY-3-8910, 3 voices
ports joystick, printer, mouse/light pen, video, audio, monitor, keyboard
The Spectravideo SVI-838 Xpress 16 — Spectravideo Goes PC Compatible
The Spectravideo SVI-838 Xpress 16 represented a significant departure for Spectravideo — abandoning the MSX architecture that had made the company famous in favour of IBM PC compatibility. Using an Intel 8088 processor at 4.77 MHz and running MS-DOS, the SVI-838 was Spectravideo’s acknowledgement that IBM PC compatibility was becoming too important to ignore, even for a company so closely associated with the MSX standard. The SVI-838 competed in the increasingly crowded budget PC-compatible market of the mid-1980s.
The MSX to PC Transition
Spectravideo’s decision to produce an IBM PC-compatible machine alongside its MSX products reflected the commercial reality of the mid-1980s computing market. The IBM PC standard was gaining dominance in business computing, and the growing availability of business software for DOS was creating demand that MSX machines could not satisfy. The SVI-838 gave Spectravideo a product in this market while the company continued to develop MSX machines for customers who preferred that platform.