Availability of colour negative film stocks in S8-cartridges (15m silent)?

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

I‘m currently reading a crime story from 1981 that takes place in 1980. In the book, the main characters get their colour prints(!) back with additional scenes that show a murder. The original films aren’t referred to as „colour reversal“, but as „negatives“?! This seems to be very strange as…

1. AFAIK Kodak’s „surveillance film“ from the middle or late 1990 was the first colour negative stock in Super8 cartridges available for private users. (It was available for banks, military, … much earlier.)
2. There had been various services that copied reversal films in the 1970s and early 1980s for private users in Western Germany (where the story takes place). But AFAIK Andec has been the first lab to offer prints from s8 col neg onto s8 print stock. But this was nearly 20 years after the story takes place.

So: Was the author mixing up facts (16mm vs. S8)? Or have their been some colour negative filmstocks in S8 cartridges in 1980 (Agfa? ORWO? Konica? 3M? …)?