COMMODORE CDTV-CR
Developer: Commodore
Year of completion: 1992 |
Over the years there have been a number of rumours that Commodore developed
a follow-up to the CDTV. Many believed it was a CDTV with a DCTV built-in,
others said it was an expanded machine with AmigaOS2, more memory, keyboard
and disk drive. These rumours were confirmed in March 2000 when two
machines appeared on eBay. The first was sold for $199, the second for
$1000. A third prototype was owned by National Amiga, who sold it to Oliver
Hannaford-Day, the CDTV.org administrator
for $250.
Unlike other Amiga CR revisions, the CDTV
CR was completely redesigned, utilizing the updated Amiga 600 technology.
According to existing information, the feature list for the machine
| CPU |
68000 7.14 Mhz CPU |
| Chipset |
Enhanced Chipset (ECS), 2 Meg Angus |
| Memory |
1MB Chip RAM,
72-pin SIMM connector |
| Operating System: |
Kickstart 2.05 (one of the prototypes have been upgraded to OS 3.1),
FMV software may have been built-in |
| Expansion: |
44 pin 2.5" IDE connector
PCMCIA card (replaces the proprietary memory card)
Expansion slot on modulator for FMV card (early version of CD32 FMV
card)
Macintosh-style serial port
Amiga video connector has now been moved onto the modulator card. |
| Drives: |
880Kb 3.5" floppy disk drive
CD-ROM |
The machine has been described by a number of names; Jeff Porter referred
to it as the CDTV 'B' , Dave Haynie had another name, calling it the CDTV-CR.
He gave a few details about the machine on the Team Amiga ML
We called that the CDTVCR (CR = Cost Reduced), but it was much
better; I
think Hedley Davis also worked on that one. It looked pretty much like
a
CD player or VCR, but it was, for the most part, CDTV done right. You
have to realize that CDTV was not done in the usual engineering way,
it
was a project that began in the "Special Projects" group. Special
Projects had long been sort of a "loophole" group; they would build
something necessary to, say, sell 10,000 computers to a country's school
system, etc. Small, strategic projects.
It was very good that CDTV started there. We had thrown around the notion
of a "living room" computer since the C128 days, but there was never
the
time or demand to allow this to happen in the more closely watched
primary Engineering group. So it probably only could have been done
in
Special Projects. But unfortunately, they didn't have the practice
at
making things cheap, so it was more expensive than it should have been.
CDTV-CR fixed this.
Greg Scott suggests that the CDTV-II, as he calls it, also included two
chips unseen in other Amigas. The first, 'Beauty' had a part number 391246-01
and the second chip, referred to as 'Grace' had a 391245-02 part number.
The machine also included the Fat Agnus 8375 2 MEG found in the A600.
Other differences between the CDTV and CR version
-
The CR motherboard is based upon the A600, rather than the A500+ of the
earlier CDTV
-
Propriatry memory card has been replaced with a PCMCIA card,
-
The front LCD display had been raised and now includes a display for recognising
the CD. It has LCD's for CDTV titles, Audio CD's & MPEG videos.
-
Chip RAM mounted on a SIMM card like slot.
-
The CD-Rom now had a slid out tray
-
A600 accelerator compatible
-
The modulator card used a new connector and included an onboard video port
(previous versions were mounted on the motherboard)
Gallery
CDTV-CR (39.4k) | CDTV
CR - front (19k) | CDTV CR -inside (17.3k)
| CDTV CR - back (11.4k)
Related Links
Growing Pains: From 'Baby' to 'CDTV'
CDA-1 (Pre-production No.1)
CDA-1 (Pre-production No.2)
Commodore CDTV
Thanks to Oliver Hannaford-Day of CDTV.org
for the large CDTV-CR image at the top of the page.
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Last Update: 1/11/2001
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