Should Commodore made cd32 like cdtv and do you think cd32 wood of sold more

Last edited by mcbone on 03-Jan-2015 at 10:33 PM.

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@mcbone

I think that wouldn't be a good idea, because the console would appear as a
'boring' or 'generic' vcr, and not a exciting games machine.

Tho that would be better to use it as a regular Amiga.

I love the idea of a black, slim Amiga tho
Something like the A1000 but with 060 and 3D acceleration AND ZORRO AND FAST ETHERNET
TO BE RELEASED IN 1995 TO BLOW THE NERD WORLD AWAY

Heh.. always dreaming of what had could happen

But very happy with my XE non the less

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@mcbone

I think that the CDTV-look is very boring and reminds me of some of the Philips CDi and other stereo equipment from that era. The CD32 isn't exactly pretty though but it certainly looks like a console which the CDTV didn't and that's better I think.

@hotrod

Looking retrospectively the consoles had better success than any computer so we can say that Commodore made the right choice with CD32.
People who bought Amiga just for games never had upgraded a 500 or 1200 to obtain better performances as people with PCs did.

Requests of market for CD32 exceeded far better manufacturing capabilities of Commodore and the CD32 was best selling machine until the arrive of Sony Playstation One.
Also look at circuitry and bus system of PSOne. It copied almost same design of CD32 except it had 3D graphics chip and circuitry.

Nowadays market requires continue upgrades so then even desktop PCs are abandoned in favour of laptops or tablets that you throw in the recycle bin any new sensible upgrade is required and buy newer model ones.

Laptop computers and tablets could be considered the equivalent of consoles but not for games while right in the world of Information Technology (never forgetting a minimum capability for playing easy stupid games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds)!!!

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the big mistake that commodore did was not add at least 1MB (more better) of fast memory, it would have doubled the speed of the machine with no much added cost to the price. A 68030 also would have been better but this option would have added much more cost to the final price

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@Raffaele

I miss the good old days when all components to be connected to TV/Stereo had the same physical format. Nowadays NOTHING can stack (wrong sizes and odd cooling requirements) and there's all sorts of cabling hell under my TV.

Example: My BluRay player has the on/off and eject buttons ON TOP and the satellite decoder next to it has cooling vents on top. And they aren't even close to the same size, one is 6-7 cm wider than the other.

But all this talk of CD32 makes me want to set mine up again. Unfortunately it's struggling a lot with the disks and I never understood this tuning thingy.

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@mcbone

The CD32 wasn't being marketed as a smart CD player but rather a games console so perhpas it was best it didn't looks like an 80's CD player. Or confuse people into thinking it just plugged into the stereo amplifier and joined the black stack.

That said, it could have done better. As mentioned it should have had fast ram, I think at least 4MB, 8MB better.

The sound should have been better, at least to match 8x16 bit channel Ataris, but at least it could play CD sound to make up for it. Even if that is a cheat to get 16-bit audio. Prerendered samples.

Chunky converter was a nice idea, but let's face it, when they added this they should have added a chunky mode instead. Even if that is alien to the Amiga. Of course I don't know how hard it would have been to design and get working fast enough a one-bitplane mode with an 8-bit pixel width. Which is what chunky would have been in Amiga terms. A blitter mode to match too much to add.

AFAIK there was no Amiga keyboard input which is was strange. Well I saw PC keyboards being promoted. Don't know why. It should have had a black key and mouse combo pack like the CDTV.

Well those are my comments.

Last edited by Hypex on 06-Jan-2015 at 03:00 PM.

@Raffaele

Quote:

It copied almost same design of CD32 except it had 3D graphics chip and circuitry.

And even then the 3d wasn't always 3d. I saw a few games where grass was still flat or a crowd was just a 2d image. That kinda put me off as it just looks fake. Even now I still see the 3d fakery.

Will there ever be a brickstone wall that has a real suface mapped texture? I wrote a basic texure mapper in AMOS once that mapped a 2d texture onto a sine wave shaped wall. Rendered a small wall under a second on my basic A1200. So given that was like a 3d texture renderer I never understood why on much faster hardware they found it so hard!

@Hypex

A new chunky mode would have required a new revision of AGA, and would have broken compatibility with the A1200/4000 as well as pushing back the launch - it was required quickly to try to get Commodore out of financial trouble. As already said, they couldn't make them fast enough and then Commodore's downfall put an end to it.

The lack of keyboard connector was because it was a console. All those sorts of inputs were available on the expansion connector. I can't remember the expansions very clearly, was there even an official Commodore one? If not that might explain the lack of an Amiga standard keyboard connector. I think Commodore would have used one of the connectors they had on their big box Amigas or the CDTV.

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@Raffaele

Not many CD32s was released in USA or was it north America IIRC? That could've made a huge difference.

Tablets and phones....... they are powerfull enough for nice games but most games are crap IMO and you really need a controller of some kind. It's available, yes but it's too expensive and unattractive compared with buying say last generation of consoles with tons of great and cheap games. Hmm... the CD32 and PSOne era was great thinking back. Nintendo seems to be the only ones who still dares to think differently when they release games which is why I love the Wii so much. Super Mario Galaxy for example is great fun. For PC it's the same FPS, driving games etc but with better gfx. It's ok and fun but I do miss the days when all kinds of ideas and different games where made.

Speaking of different, AOS 4.1 FE is different and lots of fun because of it. Anoying limitations, yes, but fun at the same time and it actually looks brighter than in years making it a good experience :) .

@Chris_Y

Quote:

Chris_Y wrote: @Hypex The lack of keyboard connector was because it was a console. .

There is a connector for Amiga 4000 keyboards I cannot confirm 100% because my 2 Cd32 had a custom expansion with various connector but if my memory not serve bad i think that i connected my A4000 keyboard to the CD32 and not to the expansion board

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@Fransexy

Quote:

Quote: Chris_Y wrote: @Hypex The lack of keyboard connector was because it was a console. . There is a connector for Amiga 4000 keyboards I cannot confirm 100% because my 2 Cd32 had a custom expansion with various connector but if my memory not serve bad i think that i connected my A4000 keyboard to the CD32 and not to the expansion board

The keyboard can be plugged into the port labeled AUX.

@olegil

Quote:

I miss the good old days when all components to be connected to TV/Stereo had the same physical format. Nowadays NOTHING can stack (wrong sizes and odd cooling requirements) and there's all sorts of cabling hell under my TV.

I'm with you on this one. That said if you go for the more expensive high end brands they are still made to the standard Hi-Fi dimensions.

@Fransexy

Quote:

Fransexy wrote: the big mistake that commodore did was not add at least 1MB (more better) of fast memory, it would have doubled the speed of the machine with no much added cost to the price. A 68030 also would have been better but this option would have added much more cost to the final price

Or: 1 MB chip + 1 MB fast instead of 2 MB chip.

@mcbone

Quote:

Should Commodore made cd32 like cdtv and do you think cd32 wood of sold more

I don't think it should have been like the CDTV but a slicker looking design would have been nice. Like others have a said an extra MB would have opened up a greater potential.

Commodore were in serious financial trouble and the CD32 was a last ditch effort to save the company.

It sold well in the UK (not sure about Europe) and the software topped the CD-ROM charts for at least 3 consecutive months.

It could have sold equally well in the US where a lot of the target audience wouldn't have previously seen many of the European titles that were re-released on CD.

Unfortunately the US government banned Commodore International from importing the CD32 into the US over the unpaid $10m debt from the XOR patent lawsuit sealing the fate of the company.

If it hadn't been for the fact that the XOR case wasn't thrown out as it should have been, and the subsequent embargo Commodore might have been able to survive long enough to get the Hombre based CD64 out there to compete with the Saturn and Playstation

@Arnie
That rings a bell now yo mention it.

@Rob
Quote:

Unfortunately the US government banned Commodore International from importing the CD32 into the US over the unpaid $10m debt from the XOR patent lawsuit sealing the fate of the company.

That's sensible - stop a company from importing a product it needs to sell in order to pay off the debt...

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I've always thought that rather than akiko they should've just add a meg of fast ram.
Increases 3d performance at least as much as akiko, but the speedup isn't just limited to c2p conversion. Not to mention you get some extra ram which can be used for all sorts of things, and gives access to a little more valuable chip ram.
Even stuff like loaders. I seem to recall Microcosm had to be compromised a little because 180KB needed to be used for video loading code for example.
Both akiko and fast ram would've been ideal, but if budget constraints where an issue in hitting the 299 pounds release price they were aiming for, then fastram seems the better option.

@Chris_Y

Quote:

A new chunky mode would have required a new revision of AGA, and would have broken compatibility with the A1200/4000 as well as pushing back the launch

They just needed to add another register to specify pixel width, perhaps at the cost of deprh, which would have been an acceptable trade off.

But I don't see how that would have greatly broken compatibility. The new screen modes in AGA did that against ECS. So how would a new mode hurt? In any case many people had RTG cards and they weren't compatible with all Amigas. And taking your example Akiko broke compatibility but not many people noticed it wasn't on their A1200.

Quote:

I can't remember the expansions very clearly, was there even an official Commodore one?

There is a serial AUX connector. Details here:

http://www.hardwarebook.info/Keyboard_(Amiga_CD32)

From what it looks like the CD32 has an A4000 type keyboard socket. Though it was hard to find that simple info after a search.

I must have confused it with the SX-1 keyboard port whuch has for some reason a AT PC port. Strange for an Amiga and confusing choice. Who would use F1//F12 as Amiga keys? I think a Mac keyboard port is more suitable.

Last edited by Hypex on 08-Jan-2015 at 01:33 PM.

@Hypex

Quote:

But I don't see how that would have greatly broken compatibility. The new screen modes in AGA did that against ECS. So how would a new mode hurt?

It would hurt in that the new mode wouldn't work on the A1200/A4000, so any games written to use it wouldn't work on those platforms. That (a) limits the market for a game using them, and (b) isn't fixable without a new hardware revision.

Quote:

And taking your example Akiko broke compatibility but not many people noticed it wasn't on their A11200.

Akiko was an addition rather than a change. It was accessible through a graphics.library function, so any friendly software (which Commodore was keen to promote by this time - hardware banging was frowned upon not that anybody cared) would work on the A1200/4000 (although I think it required Kickstart 3.1, which was already available and socketed unlike the AGA chips). If anything did require direct access to Akiko then the CD1200 was designed to provide full CD32 compatibility. Putting a new set of AGA chips inside that would have dramatically increased the price (assuming such a thing was even possible).

Akiko was the easy cheap stop-gap solution for chunky modes until AAA.

Last edited by Chris_Y on 07-Jan-2015 at 02:02 PM.
Last edited by Chris_Y on 07-Jan-2015 at 02:00 PM.

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Quote:

mcbone wrote: Should Commodore made cd32 like cdtv and do you think cd32 wood of sold more

a) Yes and
b) probably not (unless it offered something more than what CD32 offered, that being more expandability, better CPU/chipset etc)

I never liked the CD32 case but I loved the CDTV. Sadly both machines offered too little over A1200 and A500 respectively.