What is CDTV?
Harv R Laser
>the first CD interactive machines on the market(1991?).
>What can you do with it? From a new add that I read it has ports for a
>modem, mouse, joystick, keyboard, disk drive, etc. The add said that it
>has 1 meg fast ram and it can run most CD-32 games and with some software
>it can run Kodak photo CD's and some Mac CD's, etc. It also said that
>with a disk drive it can run a lot of amiga software. Plus it has a remote.
>
>What can this machine really do? How expandable is it?
>How much are they used? And what would a new one run for?
>
>Thank you for any information,
>-David Case
>
CDTV ("Commodore Dynamic Total Vision") was indeed one of the first
machines of its type, along with the original CD-I.
Commodore took basically an Amiga 500, and stuffed it inside
a hifi-component-styled black metal case. Added a single speed
CD-ROM drive, gave it an infrared remote controller, and festooned
it with all the regular Amiga connectors on the rear (floppy drive,
serial, parallel, stereo outs, etc.) plus some non standard
but adaptable connectors for keyboard and mouse, plus more
video-out ports than any other model Amiga has ever had so basically
*any* kind of tube could be used for a monitor. It doesn't look
at all like a "computer."
The machine ran a slightly-customized version of 1.3, had one meg
of CHIP ram standard. Standard MC68000 cpu. Amiga custom chips.
Many dozen CDTV "titles" (software packages) on CD ROM were released
for it. These titles ranged from everything from standard Amiga
games slapped onto a CD, to expansive databases with GUIs.These titles
are still available at very reduced prices. ($8-$20).
CDTV originally was released for a price of $1000. Commodore,
as usual, did a fairly rotten job of trying to market it. It was
a hard sell because the home market to which it was aimed looked
at it, saw a fancy CD player and thought "What!?!? Those are about
$300. Why should I pay $1000 for it?" It was not initially advertised
as even being a computer.
Later, C= changed marketing tactics a bit and finally ADMITTED
that CDTV had an Amiga 500 inside of it but by then it was way
too late. Only 100,000 units were made and sold. Peripherals,
such as fancy trakball controllers and keyboards (all black) were
also sold for it towards the end of its marketed life. However, standard
Amiga stuff (monitors, drives, keyboard, etc.) can be hooked to it.
CDTV is a bit tough to expand due to the fact that the motherboard
is near the top of the case, rather than at the bottom, so clearance
is a problem, although in the UK, a number of add-ons for it
were marketed including internal hard drives and RAM cards.
To upgrade a CDTV to 2.04 or higher was really only an option for
Amiga developers. The public was never offered a ROM upgrade kit
for it.
It's an intersting machine. I owned one for a couple years.
You can play regular Audio CDs on it, CD+G and CD+G+MIDI titles
on it (it has MIDI in/out ports on it as well!), regular
ISO-9660 style generic CDs (Aminet, GIFs galore, Light-ROM, etc.),
plus CDTVspecific titles of which there were many dozens.
CD32 software on a CDTV will be a problem, mainly cuz the CDTV has
the older ECS chip set, unlike CD32 which is AGA and has 2 meg of
RAM. (CD32 is kinda like an A1200 minus its rear ports).
Had commodore brought the thing out at a reasonable price (like
half of that original $1000), and admitted it was a very capable
computer, not some hifi component, it may have done better but
the price realy scared off a lot of folks.
You will see them for sale occasionally in comp.sys.amiga.marketplace.
$200 or less is a reasonable price to pay for a CDTV. You are highly
unlikely to be able to buy a brand new CDTV anywhere.
Oh.. one more detail, the type of CD ROM drive in CDTV requires
that each CD be loaded into a "caddie" transport mechanism, unlike
most common CD ROM drives and CD32 which don't need caddies.
Ultimately you may be happier with a CD32. They are still available,
brand new, from many Amiga dealers hovering around the $250 price
point. A co. called Paravision makes (made?) an expansion unit
for CD32 called SX1 which gives it the full complement of Amiga
ports. CD32 also has the capability to play VideoCD or CD-I format
movies on CDs, but that requires the additional MPEG addon card.
CDTV has no such capability, however CDTV (and CD32 as well) can
play Commodore's own unique "CDXL" titles and animations, which
allow for quarter screen moving video with syncd sound tracks.
So to sum up, as sold, CDTV was a more complete machine than
CD32, but CD32 is more modern, but requires more add-on
hardware to give it the expansion/add-on capabilities that came
built in to CDTV. There is plenty of software for both.
David W. Case
Kyle D Widener
Hi... I have one :)
It's a hybrid Amiga 500. Comes with 1 meg _Chip_ ram, kickstart 1.3, an infere
d controller, and a _signal_ speed cd-rom drive that can read the following for
mats: cdtv, ISO9660, high-seria, music cd, and cd+G. It will run some of the mo
re friendly cd32 games but I think Photo-cd requires a double speed.
They had an add-on kit called the pro-pack that gave you an A2000 style keyboa
rd, a mouse, and a 1011 style floppy drive with workbench 1.3 and the Golddisk
software bundle. The unit has outputs for: color composite, amiga rgb, SVHS. It
has MIDI in/out, and normal serial and parallel ports. The keyboard/mouse-joy
port are non-standard (sub-mini DIN) and you need a special adaptor such as the
Expansion Systems "Brickett" to accept a normal mouse/joystick.
On the down side the expansion capability is very limited. They had a scsi ada
ptor out for it but no normal expansion port. There is a pcmcia style port that
was designed before there was a real standard. They made a 2 meg RAM card for
it at one time. It has non-standard kickstart chips so as far as I know it is n
ot possible to upgrade the dos.
As far as it goes it's a nice system. It is still in demand for keiosk work. I
t has a high quality 8X oversample cd drive in it with a cool graphics display/
control when it plays. Any other questions let me know :)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++ ++
++ Kyle Widener ++
++ Ky...@cup.portal.com ++
++ "I Breathe In ZModem!" ++
++ ++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Frank Lazar
: CDTV ("Commodore Dynamic Total Vision") was indeed one of the first
: machines of its type, along with the original CD-I.
: You will see them for sale occasionally in comp.sys.amiga.marketplace.
: $200 or less is a reasonable price to pay for a CDTV. You are highly
: unlikely to be able to buy a brand new CDTV anywhere.
I bought one a couple of months ago that had been sitting on a dealer's
shelf for a loooooong time. So I was probably the last person in the NYC
area to actually get a "new" one. I've a line on a 2.o developer's rom
and I'm thinking of adding SCSI-TV, CD-Ram and makinga modest BBS out of one.
"Look up on the shelf, it's a stereo component, it's a CD Player, no
it's my BBS!"
Jason Compton
No, it's not, since Paravision is out of business. But a company called
High-Tech Components has taken over the manufacture and distribution of
the SX-1 and is, so they say, working on the next-generation units that
Paravision had been building.
--
Jason Compton jcom...@xnet.com
Editor-in-Chief, Amiga Report Magazine (708) 491-4064 FAX
The time to rise has been engaged. Rael Imperial...
Maxwell Daymon
: of CHIP ram standard. Standard MC68000 cpu. Amiga custom chips.
I must argue here. It was not a customized 1.3 at all. In fact, I've
replaced the Kickstart with a 1.3 from an A500 with no problems.
What it DOES have is a set of FlashROMs that contain the extra code for
CD and multimedia stuff which configures in the 256K area above the 1.3
ROM. Unfortunately, this conflicts with the 512K 2.0 and 3.0 ROMs making
it impossible to upgrade (without giving up the CD-ROM drive).
It may perhaps be possible to read this memory and bind it late with a
relocation table or something.
: CDTV is a bit tough to expand due to the fact that the motherboard
: is near the top of the case, rather than at the bottom, so clearance
: is a problem, although in the UK, a number of add-ons for it
No kidding, but you can cut a hole in the top and stick an accelerator on
it. You can even put chrome pipes and such sticking out for effect. ;-)
: were marketed including internal hard drives and RAM cards.
Those went into the expansion port, so clearance was not much of a problem.
: To upgrade a CDTV to 2.04 or higher was really only an option for
: Amiga developers. The public was never offered a ROM upgrade kit
: for it.
They must have had a version of the FlashROMs that configured higher up.
: ISO-9660 style generic CDs (Aminet, GIFs galore, Light-ROM, etc.),
: plus CDTVspecific titles of which there were many dozens.
It had a number of bugs related to ISO-9660 discs.
: Oh.. one more detail, the type of CD ROM drive in CDTV requires
: that each CD be loaded into a "caddie" transport mechanism, unlike
: most common CD ROM drives and CD32 which don't need caddies.
Caddies protect CD-ROMs. The lifespan of a CD-ROM not protected by a
caddy can be VERY short. Most of my original titles are already damaged
because I only had one caddy. (I kept them in their cases or in the caddy
at all times)
------------------
Maxwell Daymon
mda...@rmii.com
------------------
Andrew Folkins
: And what would a new one run for?
You're not going to find a new one, you're only bet is to trip over one
in a dealer's stockroom or find one in the classifieds.
Let's see, I guess it was almost a year ago when distributors were
blowing out A570's for under $100 we got a line one some 'new' CDTVs that
I guess someone found in a warehouse. We ordered six, the final price
turned out to be about $85 Canadian each.
Unfortunately, these were by no means new - a couple of them looked like
they'd fallen off the truck, and I believe only two of them were in
working condition. We managed to resurrect three of the others by
swapping parts. The last one had a dead CD-ROM drive, and so just sits
forlornly under the workbench.
Sorta sad, seeing those poor beat-up CDTVs...
--
Andrew Folkins afol...@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca
Debugging is at least twice as hard as programming. If your code
is as clever as you can possibly make it, then by definition you're
not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian Kernighan
John Scotto
>it at one time. It has non-standard kickstart chips so as far as I know it is n
>ot possible to upgrade the dos.
to install it in my CDTV (which I have also just managed to bring back
to life). It does require special developer eeproms but they are available
sporadically on the market. The German firm Mikronik makes ram expansions
and I have heard accelerators for the CDTV. AmiTrix Development in Canada
makes the scsi-tv expansion. The Mega-Chip will also fit into most CDTV's.
Dr. Peter Kittel
>I have a few questions about CDTV. From what I have heard, it was one of
>the first CD interactive machines on the market(1991?).
One can say *the* first. And more like 1990.
>What can you do with it? From a new add that I read it has ports for a
>modem, mouse, joystick, keyboard, disk drive, etc.
Yes, but connectors for mouse and joystick are very non-standard.
You need an intelligent interface to connect normal devices.
The other ports are (Amiga) standard.
> The add said that it
>has 1 meg fast ram
Yes, and the "ECS" Amiga chip set, not the newer AA chips as the CD32
(no upgrade possible).
> and it can run most CD-32 games
Huh? Please do not rely on this statement. Yet there are a number of
CDTV applications still available. There were nearly 200 of them
available.
> and with some software
>it can run Kodak photo CD's
Yes, but I don't know concrete product names.
> and some Mac CD's,
Nah. When you have a floppy attached and use proper software loaded from
that, you can view picture files from Mac or PC CDs, but no software from
any of them.
> It also said that
>with a disk drive it can run a lot of amiga software. Plus it has a remote.
Yes. The remote has cursor, Enter, Esc, 10 digits, and the mouse buttons.
It serves as a mouse (or joystick, depending on app) and a limited keyboard.
>What can this machine really do?
Run nice CDTV apps, including some with CDXL movies (e.g. one CD from
NASA is a 45 minutes video about its space history), show CD+G discs,
play audio CDs, play CD+MIDI discs (there are *very* few of these).
There are also a number of Karaoke discs. If you connect a floppy, you
can run a big percentage of A500, OS1.3 software.
> How expandable is it?
Hardly. There are offers for RAM and SCSI, but expensive and hard to
get to (W.A.W. in Berlin, Germany). It runs OS1.3 standard and I do not
recommend to upgrade it (it's nearly impossible to get the 2.0 ROMs,
and they make it incompatible with many CDTV apps).
>How much are they used?
There were sold under 20,000, I think (can't swear).
> And what would a new one run for?
Once they sold for nearly $1000. Its successor, the CD32, is again a
different beast, more styled as a game console, and much cheaper.
--
Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel //
Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ Email to: pet...@combo.ganesha.com
Now ex-employee of Commodore, Class of '95.
Kristijan Simunic
>I have a few questions about CDTV. [...]
:> The add said that it
:> has 1 meg fast ram
||||
+ CHIP +
:> It also said that
:>with a disk drive it can run a lot of amiga software. Plus it has a remote.
|||
+ 99% +
...and nice aundio CD-player :)
.cOaCh.
Per Espen Hagen
> :> It also said that
> :>with a disk drive it can run a lot of amiga software. Plus it has a remote.
> |||
> + 99% +
99%????? No way. Are you forgetting that the CDTV only has KS 1.3, and
*can't* be upgraded to 2.x/3.x (at least not without sacrificing CD
support...)
So, to the original poster:
- Almost no current productive software can be run on the CDTV.
- Almost no current PD/freeware/shareware Workbench enhancements and
add-ons can be run.
- Only an old, ugly, unstable, and obsolescent version of the AmigaOS will
run.
However, many games will function, as will old productive software.
--
Per Espen Hagen per-esp...@ffi.no Tel: +47 63807653 //
Senior Scientist Image Processing Group NDRE, Norway \X/
Any resemblance between the above views and the views of my employer,
myself, or the view out of my window, is non-deterministic.
Graeme Fenwick
: In article <3iigkt$f...@Ra.MsState.Edu> dw...@Ra.MsState.Edu (David W. Case) writes:
: >I have a few questions about CDTV. From what I have heard, it was one of
: >the first CD interactive machines on the market(1991?).
: > and it can run most CD-32 games
: Huh? Please do not rely on this statement. Yet there are a number of
: CDTV applications still available. There were nearly 200 of them
: available.
: >it can run Kodak photo CD's
: Yes, but I don't know concrete product names.
I was under the impression it couldn't use PhotoCDs because it didn't have
a multi session compatable drive. My A570 certainly shouldn't be able to...
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What the world needs is a new age.
What the world doesn't need is New Age.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Graeme Fenwick:-
email gfen...@mcs.dundee.ac.uk
homepage http://www.mcs.dundee.ac.uk:8080/~gfenwick/index.html
(includes link to Atari XL/XE page)
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S.Casey
[something or other that has nothing much to do with my followup!]
Erm, just thought I would mention as an aside. I was at a computer
show yesterday (first I have ever gone to in my life!), and about
the only interesting thing there was a selection of about 20/30
CDTV titles. Given that I was a at the show, as an owner of a
A570, and I did not buy any, what exactly are the chances of ANY
of them being sold? Ahh well...
--
--- Stephen Casey, Industrial year | If you put every smoker, head to
Computers Wolverhampton University | foot around the world, some 67
E-Mail : cm5...@scitsc.wlv.ac.uk | percent would drown.
HTTP: http://scitsc.wlv.ac.uk/~cm5292/home.html