Where could you buy a Creativision?
Re: Where could you buy a Creativision?
Tonight I made a small discovery, while testing this latest Creativision system our association bought from a member's friend. The system boots OK but the left controller is entirely dead. It looks like the cable has been repaired and one wire is broken. I will measure for continuity on all the other wires, patch the broken one and hope it won't be a bigger problem than so.
Anyway, the discovery is that on at least one of the boxed (common) games, there is a price sticker from a downtown department store called Sigma. Back in the days, they both had a reasonably sized TV department (which is the place where I crashed a Commodore 64 for the first time, as I thought it was a VIC-20 and tried to SYS 64802 which locks the C64 up) and a toy department. It appears either of these departments also sold Creativision at the time, as this Tennis game was discounted at 49 SEK. It could be compared to the Auto Chase that Hobbex once tried to sell for 150 SEK and then had a sale at 75 SEK. I don't know if those two prices would have appeared simultaneously, but as my theory is that Hobbex bought surplus stock from Ellos to sell in their outlet store, while a reseller like the department store most likely had stock they couldn't get rid of themselves, I would think Tennis for 49 SEK appeared before Auto Chase for 75 SEK.
Well, baby steps but every little bit of information is interesting. For that matter, the department store was restructured 20-25 years ago and none of the mentioned departments still exist. Actually they converted the entire basement floor into a bowling alley, and the remaining stores became individual with own entrances from outside rather than being part of a bigger department store.
Anyway, the discovery is that on at least one of the boxed (common) games, there is a price sticker from a downtown department store called Sigma. Back in the days, they both had a reasonably sized TV department (which is the place where I crashed a Commodore 64 for the first time, as I thought it was a VIC-20 and tried to SYS 64802 which locks the C64 up) and a toy department. It appears either of these departments also sold Creativision at the time, as this Tennis game was discounted at 49 SEK. It could be compared to the Auto Chase that Hobbex once tried to sell for 150 SEK and then had a sale at 75 SEK. I don't know if those two prices would have appeared simultaneously, but as my theory is that Hobbex bought surplus stock from Ellos to sell in their outlet store, while a reseller like the department store most likely had stock they couldn't get rid of themselves, I would think Tennis for 49 SEK appeared before Auto Chase for 75 SEK.
Well, baby steps but every little bit of information is interesting. For that matter, the department store was restructured 20-25 years ago and none of the mentioned departments still exist. Actually they converted the entire basement floor into a bowling alley, and the remaining stores became individual with own entrances from outside rather than being part of a bigger department store.
Re: Where could you buy a Creativision?
Thank you so much for providing the update, Anders!
Every small piece of information is precious, especially after 30+ years.
Every small piece of information is precious, especially after 30+ years.
Re: Where could you buy a Creativision?
At the moment, the Royal Swedish Library (KB) has opened their magazine search engine as a benefit to all bored, self-isolating people. I've made a number of searches on topics that otherwise are near impossible to find information on the Internet, but it turns out the magazine archive is full of info.
Dagens Industri (September 14, 1983) has a small blurb:
Expressen (October 9, 1983) has an overview of the growing home computer market, focusing on TI-99/4A, Colour Genie, Atari 600XL, Luxor ABC-80, Dragon 32 (with a picture of another computer which is not a Dragon 32!), Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, VIC-20, ZX-81, Atari 400 and Spectravideo SVI-318 but also makes a note in the passing that you might also want to look at Oric, Laser, Jupiter, Microprofessor, Sord, Radio Shack, Komtek and CreatiVision.
Dagens Nyheter (November 11, 1983) in the classifieds has a Creativision 16K for sale, with tape recorder, BASIC and 4 games. Price as new 4500 SEK, now only 3500 SEK after 2 months of use.
Dagens Nyheter (November 14, 1984) has another Creativision for sale in the classifieds. This time you get it with tape recorder and 9 games for 1800 SEK.
Dagens Nyheter (November 15, 1984) has yet another Creativision for sale, with 4 games. Price as new 4000 SEK, now only 1000 SEK!! The same seller advertised also the next day.
Unfortunately that was all I could find, one short article, one mention in an overview and three sad people wanting to sell their Creativision systems. By November 1984 obviously it was cold like an ice cube, people almost would give it away.
Dagens Industri (September 14, 1983) has a small blurb:
Nothing new here - they got pretty much the entire spec in a few lines though I'm not sure about the 16K RAM of which 11K is available for the user. Is that the result of the BASIC cartridge storing programs in VRAM?Creativision dator, som introduceras av Elof Hansson i Göteborg har i grundutförande 8-bit CPU, 16 färger, grafik med 256x192 punkter, tre tongeneratorer, 16 kB primärminne varav 11 kB användarminne, 2 MHz klockfrekvens, Basictolk och uttag för bandkassettminne. Creativision-datorn kan förses med bl.a. utökat primärminne - max 64 kB, seriellt/parallellt I/O-interface för t.ex. skrivare, plotter, diskettstation, telefonmodem och separat tangentbord.
Expressen (October 9, 1983) has an overview of the growing home computer market, focusing on TI-99/4A, Colour Genie, Atari 600XL, Luxor ABC-80, Dragon 32 (with a picture of another computer which is not a Dragon 32!), Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, VIC-20, ZX-81, Atari 400 and Spectravideo SVI-318 but also makes a note in the passing that you might also want to look at Oric, Laser, Jupiter, Microprofessor, Sord, Radio Shack, Komtek and CreatiVision.
Dagens Nyheter (November 11, 1983) in the classifieds has a Creativision 16K for sale, with tape recorder, BASIC and 4 games. Price as new 4500 SEK, now only 3500 SEK after 2 months of use.
Dagens Nyheter (November 14, 1984) has another Creativision for sale in the classifieds. This time you get it with tape recorder and 9 games for 1800 SEK.
Dagens Nyheter (November 15, 1984) has yet another Creativision for sale, with 4 games. Price as new 4000 SEK, now only 1000 SEK!! The same seller advertised also the next day.
Unfortunately that was all I could find, one short article, one mention in an overview and three sad people wanting to sell their Creativision systems. By November 1984 obviously it was cold like an ice cube, people almost would give it away.
Re: Where could you buy a Creativision?
Hi Carlsson
Well done and thanks for sharing!
The RAM available for BASIC is about 9K, so I have no idea where the 11K come from.
Is there a chance to get the scans of the full articles and covers?
Well done and thanks for sharing!
The RAM available for BASIC is about 9K, so I have no idea where the 11K come from.
Is there a chance to get the scans of the full articles and covers?
Re: Where could you buy a Creativision?
Late reply: The archive has now closed again, so I can't obtain the full clips any longer. 