Commodore CDTV

CDTV repackaged Amiga technology as a living-room multimedia appliance with a CD-ROM drive and infrared remote. Its black hi-fi styling deliberately concealed its computer origins.

It was an early attempt to define an interactive CD multimedia market before such products had a clear audience.

Notable Features

• CD audio and Amiga data can share the same optical disc.
• Optional keyboard, mouse and floppy transform it into a more conventional Amiga.

Historical Significance

• It was an early attempt to define an interactive CD multimedia market before such products had a clear audience.

Collector’s Notes

• Chipset and motherboard revision, Kickstart ROM, RAM expansion, accelerator cards and original keyboard or mouse should be documented.
• Memory, storage, displays and expansion hardware should be documented because configurations often changed during a system’s working life.

Specifications

Technical Information
Name	Commodore CDTV
Manufacturer	Commodore
Launched	Tuesday, January 1, 1991
Discontinued	1993
Country	United States
CPU	Motorola 68000 at approximately 7.1 MHz
Units Sold
Form Factor	Black component-style multimedia computer
Power	Internal or external mains supply according to model
Networking	Serial, parallel, MIDI and third-party Ethernet or networking options according to model
Operating System	CDTV firmware and AmigaOS-compatible software
Expansion / I/O	CD-ROM, MIDI, serial, parallel, expansion and controller interfaces
Keyboard	Infrared remote; optional keyboard and mouse
Storage	Single-speed CD-ROM; external floppy and hard-disk options
Sound	Paula PCM stereo plus CD audio
Colours	Up to 32 colours normally, 64 in EHB and 4096 in HAM on OCS/ECS; AGA models support up to 256 indexed colours and HAM8 from 24-bit palettes
Graphics	OCS Amiga graphics
Display	Television or RGB display
ROM	Kickstart and CDTV extended ROMs
RAM	1MB Chip RAM
CPU Speed	Approximately 7.1 MHz