HI

Just been looking through some old systems I did not realise the Cdi was 68000 based. maybe Philips should of contacted commodore for a OS. But knowing commodore they would most likely turn them down like they did a lot of things.

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@g01df1sh

Philips was in the MSX consortium... If they had been looking for a proprietary OS for CDi they could had patched MSX-DOS or extended it.

--- Off topic ---

CDi was interesting system but developers were obliged pay Philips lots of license fees for producing new titles and it required also loan a special Philips development computer based on PCs.

From the other side Amiga CDTV development was free and it required just buy a cheap Amiga computer to produce software for it.

Commodore never understood they own the golden egg chicken.


P.S. Did you know Philips in that age paid computer journalists and TV Computer Shows asking them not to made comparison reviews with CDi Vs CDTV?

Last edited by Raffaele on 02-Dec-2016 at 03:18 PM.

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"When the Amiga came out, everyone [at Apple] was scared as hell." (J.L. Gassée, former CEO of Apple France and chief of devs of Mac II-fx, interviewed by Amazing Computing, Nov 1996).

@g01df1sh

It would have been a CDiTV.

@Raffaele

There was an MSX-DOS? Was this a big endian MS-DOS?

@g01df1sh

I got this one.

CD-i was based on a chipset create by Signetics, a division of Phillips.
It used a 68000 based processor called the 68070 (although higher numerically than Motorola processors, the 68070 performs slightly worse than a stock 68000).

CD-i used a lossy form of video compression for video output that is not as good as that contained on standard video disc (although it was felt that it was adequate for the application), and the inclusion of a general purpose processor allowed the system to run software contained on the discs as well.

As video quality was affected by the codecs used and the available cpu power, many later CD-i players could also be fitted with an mpeg decoder board that is extremely similar to the one that was available for the CD32.

The operating system used in CD-i players is based on Microware's OS-9 for the 68K OS with a custom GUI.
This OS started out on 6809 processors (like those used in some SWTPC systems, it was also available as an option for the Tandy Color Computer series).
The 68K version obviously allows the use of significantly more powerful processors, while retaining many of the advantages of OS-9 including the use of position independent, re-entrant code that increases memory efficiency.
Later versions of OS-9 were ported to other processors including PowerPC and i386, but the 68K version is the last version that was coded in native machine language (all later versions were created with C). It has an obvious advantage over the later versions in terms of efficiency and compact size.
OS-9 was primarily used in process control and embedded applications, and is an RTOS with a vaguely UNIX-like structure. In many ways it resembles RTOS OS' used to this day except that it does not support SMP.

So...why do I know all this?
My company, Delmar Company of Middletown Delaware, sold 68K based systems using OS-9 from the '80s into the early '90s.
Our first systems were based on Peripheral Technologies' PT68K4 systems (which were an advancement on the PT68K1&K2 systems that some of you may be familar with as Peter Stark published a series of articles on them and developed an OS caled StarDOS to run on them).
The PT68K4 used a 68000 processor at up to 10 MHz and an ISA expansion bus.
Our base four user terminal system sold for under $1000.
That was commonly used in point of sales systems, office applications, and in process control.
Our console systems added a Tseng Labs ET-4000 based video card, a keyboard and (if needed) a mouse.
As I think I have mentioned before, the rights to port a GUI called G-Windows were obtained from the programmer that created it for Gespac (a manufacturer of process control hardware), so that was available as a further option.
A later version of this system based on the PT68K5, a 68020 based board was also sold as were a variety of other SBCs.

CD-i eventually failed in the marketplace (and video discs did not truly become popular until the advent of DVDs).
As the price of PC hardware dropped, alternative computing systems had a harder time competing with the products produced by manufacturers of Wintel systems.
And the final nail in that coffin was the wide availability of support and software for both PC and Mac systems that wasn't found on systems produced in smaller volumes.

So...a little piece of history (the last part of which I'm sure you all know).

As to Phillips using AmigaOS, why?
They had an alternative with distinct advantages over AmigaOS. And their chipset wasn't Amiga compatible.
HOWEVER, the Amiga could have been made CD-i compatible.
The processor is basically the same, and the functions of the CD-i chipset can be emulated by other components.
AND, as I've mentioned, the mpeg board used in the CD32 was very similar to those used in CDi units.

Then again, as CD-i failed to gain traction, there are only a limited number of titles available.

Phillips, a second source for many Motorola components, and the originator of what had to be the most popular series of UARTs ever used in the PC world (with variations still being produced), is no more and is now part of NXP (the company that just bought out Freescale, which in itself was the successor to Motorola).

SO...the company that currently owns the rights to the P5020 cpu used in the X5000, is also the company that absorbed both Phillips AND what was left of Motorola Semi.

Kind of interesting how all this is connected, eh?

Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 09:58 PM.
Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 09:48 PM.
Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 07:32 PM.
Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 05:32 PM.

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Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

Philips CD-i is a simple CD player to run Interactive Multimedia Product with CD-RTOS operating system.
Someone confuse philips CD-i with Pioneer MSX Laser Disc

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@Seiya

Quote:

Someone confuse philips CD-i with Pioneer MSX Laser Disc

Hardly, the two are not even vaguely similar.

CD-i, as I stated, was an in house project based on Signetics hardware.
Effectively Phillips trying to nail down a video disc standard that would earn it profits from licensing and from hardware sales.
CD-i, CDROM(XA) and PhotoCD are described in the "Green Book" rather
than Yellow Book (which lists earlier CD format standards).

I never paid much attention to MSX as it was a Japanese standard (at least until recently, I have two projects I work with now that are based on a couple of later generation MSX video display processors the V9958 and V9990).

One of our competitors (well not really a competitor as they were marketing to Color Computer customers as a upgrsade to the Color Computer 3) was Interactive Media Systems with their MM1 (which was based on the CD-i chipset, but with only one VDP).

CD-RTOS (Compact Disc Real Time Operating System) is, as I've said, based on OS-9 with a proprietary GUI.

Since I spent nearly a decade working with this OS, questioning my knowledge on it isn't a great idea. I pulled this much info out of my ass purely on recall.

Now if you'd like a more detailed answer...

Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 09:46 PM.
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Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@Beans

your competence is too big ;)

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@Seiya

Quote:

your competence is too big ;)

Funny, none of the women I've known including my ex-wife ever told me that.

No, sorry about the hubris evident in the posts.
There was a time when I thought things were really headed my way, using an obscure OS that I thought had a lot of advantages, which was then picked to be included in a major consumer device, which then FAILED in the marketplace.
Opps!

We went from Microsoft making an offer to buy Microware outright (which they were dumb enough to turn down), to trying to migrate to X86 (which wouldn't even work until the i386 was introduced because X86 sucked), to a slow stagnation as memory became cheaper (and one of our prime advantages became less important) and then development slowed.
No unifying GUI (there were several) , no SMP, a pretty difficult OS to use from a CLI...
More than a few problems.

But it did kick ass at the time.

IF CD-i had produced better quality video output (or if mpeg decoding hardware had been built-in from the start)...

But, CD-i WAS definitely 68000 based.

AND the CD32 could have been easily modified to read/run CD-i titles, probably with just some software.

Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 11:48 PM.
Last edited by Beans on 02-Dec-2016 at 11:45 PM.

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Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"

@g01df1sh

I have my CDi on the floor here behind me and the manual is still in a sealed bag so forgive me for not opening just to check. I have both the 210 and 450 versions and I have used them but if I recall I wasn't that impressed.

CDi .... or Compact Disc Interactive

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz299.htm

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz391.htm

I have a game here for it called Voyeur ... don't get caught. Comes with Video Speedway.

The CD case is annoyingly an inch or so larger than normal cases and just is a pain to stack anywhere. So it sits on top of my tower of Amiga CD's.

Interestingly this was a better bit of kit if unusual gaming platforms is your bag.

http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz405.htm

scuzz

@g01df1sh
Quote:

CD-i eventually failed in the marketplace (and video discs did not truly become popular until the advent of DVDs).

Video CDs did not become popular in the west but across much of Asia including China and India it was a popular format (it may even still have new media to this day).

@IanP

Quote:

Video CDs did not become popular in the west but across much of Asia including China and India it was a popular format (it may even still have new media to this day).

I've made video CDs before and burned them to CDRs, but they don't hold that much video.
And as a commercial format? No, they never took off here.

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Amiga! "Our appeal has become more selective"