Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken!taco!hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu!kdarling From: kdarling@hobbes.catt.ncsu.edu (Kevin Darling) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Re: CDTV Hits Local Paper (Take Note Kevin) Message-ID: <1991Apr16.035609.6480@ncsu.edu> Date: 16 Apr 91 03:56:09 GMT References: <23546@know.pws.bull.com> Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 87 ai065@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Thomas Hill) writes: > I caught this in my local paper this past week. Interesting parts have been reposted for your reading pleasure. Many thanks for posting! And for the "Take Note Kevin" title. Us old farts do need help. So, I guess you expect a response? Well... okay, he says grudgingly... but I can't keep this up forever ... > The device also marks a comeback of sorts for Nolan Bushnell, Yah, no doubt that _is_ a main reason CDTV exists. Comeback time :-) :-). > The machine can be hooked up to a computer printer and a VCR. That allows > students to use the reference programs to compile reports. They either could > be printed out on paper or stored on a videotape, which could be played > in the classroom, Dionne said. Excellent! The standard printer port can indeed be very useful... especially if CBM brings out a cheap color printer, for example (and/or creates a disc with printer drivers, of which you'd store one on a personal RAM card. Do I have to think of everything? ;-) Still, ummm, the number of reference titles which can be used with a printer is kinda limited. Someone else already knocked down that VCR notion, btw. > The program discs will cost an average of $50, which Dionne said is > comparable to the cost of video game cartridges. Up to 40 disc titles are Same-same. > Mark Stahiman, an analyst with the Baltimore investment firm Alex Brown & > Sons, said he was impressed by the CDTV's capabilities and predicted it would HAHAHAHA! Sorry. Sorry. Not making fun of _you_, Tom. It's just that pro/con analysts are a dime a dozen for anything. > "This couldn't come at a better time, with the 8-bit Nintendo console > business leveling off and with more and more parents worried that junior is > spending all his free time drop-kicking aliens," he said. Oh, I can see the CBM ads now, can't you? Simply use a Toaster overlay to place CDTV on top of the C64 in the old ads of that little fat kid "losing out" on college because he only played games. Urg And let's just hope CDTV ads don't ever run right next to a computer ad showing a kid playing games on his Amiga, eh? > By the end of June it will be > available in at least 25 of the nation's major markets, Dionne said. . Any store that carries A/V components at all will probably have CD-I players by the end of the year; but we'll see. > Though it is powered by computer chips made by the West Chester, Pa-based > Commodore, the machine is assembled in Japan by Matsushita, the maker of > Panasonic products, according to an industry source who spoke anonymously. Interesting! That means the profit argument people give for Commodore/CDTV, will work double (CD-I and CDTV) for Matsushita. Fascinating indeed. > Dionne said Commodore plans to license the technology to other electronics > companies to establish CDTV as a standard. That would put Commodore in > contention with the industry consortium. [ <<< !!! ] > ...... Wait. Sounds like an interesting paragraph was left out here? And who's left over outside the CD-I consortium to license CDTV? > In addition to the home market, Dionne said the machine should find uses in > industrial training and retail point-of-sale displays. No doubt. As mentioned before, CD-I players have been used thus for a year. Also the military uses them for medical aid on battlefields, and Renault has chosen them for global multilingual support of their dealers. > Though other CD-based information products exist for these uses, they are > far more expensive, he said. He, of course, meant today's computers with CDROM drives tacked on. > [from .sig] "IBM's greatest sales tool is ignorance on the consumer's part" Umm. I think you can guess what my related comment would be ;-). Many _sincere_ thanks, again. Enjoyed the heck out of the article, Tom! At your service, kevin