Commodore CDTV

In March 1991 the company presented its new development Commodore CDTV ( Commodore Dynamic Total Vision ) at the Winter CES Las Vegas in front of the public. The competitor's product to the CD -i Philips combined the technology of a home computer based on the Amiga 500 with the concept of a set-top box. The device looked like a CD player (internal project name also Black baby) and had a remote control that has a strong resemblance to today's gamepads. Additionally, this device came with a built-in CD -ROM drive, with which you could play audio CDs ( video CDs could only be the CD ³ ², and only with additional hardware ) and CD G discs (CD plus Graphics ).

The problem of the console was on the one hand the lack of software, on the other hand too small for this concept computing power, which meant that the video playback was hardly possible.

Specifications

  • CPU: Motorola 68000 7.14 MHz ( NTSC version) or 7.09 MHz ( PAL version )
  • Memory: 1 MB chip memory
  • Chipset: Original Chip Set (OCS, but already with "Big Agnus " for the 1 MB chip memory )
  • OS: Kickstart 1.3 CDTV module
  • Drive: single-speed CD -ROM
  • SRAM memory card slot after minor usual 38 -pin standard of Fujisoku and ITT Cannon ( incompatible with 68-pin PCMCIA memory card )
  • Remote control: modulation 40 kHz instead of 36 or 38

Software

The built-in software includes as a supplement to ordinary AmigaOS V1.3 the necessary drivers to control the CD -ROM drive. This shall include a driver for small films belongs in the so-called CDXL format, which is based on the HAM- mode and direct streaming control the CD drive. This is at a frame rate ( frame rate ) of about 12 frames / s just to reach a window size of a quarter - screen, especially limited by the data rate of the single-speed CD-ROM drive. At the time, this was an unrivaled performance.

For the CDTV games published on CD- ROM. But there were also learning applications and multimedia software.

Title

A small selection of well-known titles:

Compatibility

Since the hardware for the most part on the Amiga 500 (more precisely, A500 , because of the ECS Agnus ) based, you could continue to use most of the software on the CDTV, but why then connect an external floppy disk drive was needed.

Extensibility

  • Floppy (Standard floppy Amiga 500)
  • Genlock Interface ( TV image and CDTV image mix )
  • Keyboard
  • SCART map
  • Directly connectable joysticks
  • PCMCIA Type I card slot
  • SCSI controller for hard disk
  • Turbo Card 020
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