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From: Robert.Rhodes@f420.n110.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Robert Rhodes)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: CDTV
Message-ID: <297.26D61C87@afitamy.fidonet.org>
Date: 23 Aug 90 22:47:52 GMT
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AREA:UUCP_HRDWR
Part 1 of a 2 part post!
Brought to you by Kris Wood


    Called the "Baby" by those who designed it, Commodore's new
interactive
CD-ROM unit has been officially labelled"CDTV", which stands for
Commodore
Dynamic Total Vision. The unit itself looks, very deliberately, like a
stereo
component; it has a remote control and is just as easy to operate. By
giving
it this look, Commodore hopes to bring Amiga computing to those who are 
intimidated by computers in general. CDTV is actually an Amiga in modular
form; a separately available infrared keyboard, mouse, disk drive, and
other
peripherals can be plugged in to make it a full-blown Amiga. 

    The unit comes with 1Mb of chip RAM, along with a non-volatile 64K
RAM
card that fits into a slot on the front of the machine, which will
permit 
games and other data to be saved. The machine has two internal slots,
one 
for video (genlocks, etc.) and one DMA (for SCSI, networking, and the
like).

    The back of the box has the standard Amiga ports (parallel, serial,
disk

drive) along  with what Commodore calls a "hardwired alternative to IR
for
keyboard, mouse, or joystick." However, the strongest selling point is
that 
it can be hooked up to a regular TV (though it also has RGB output) and
used
right out of the box.
   
    It's a philosophy that just may work if Commodore takes
the right marketing approach. At the official roll-out party, Commodore's
mewly appointed manager of Interactive Consumer Products division (and
Atari
founder), Nolan Bushnell, had the crowd at a fair level of excitement
until
he started talking about using the educational aspect of CDTV as a
primary
selling point, asserting that it would completely revolutionize education
in this country.


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