• Philips Cdi Emulator For Windows
• Cdi Emulator Online

The Philips CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) player was a 16-bit CD ROM based system that was released to us in 1991 priced $699.00.

This is the first CD-I emulator. It was written by Pete Dabbs using his own code for BIOS made mostly from scratch and the Rise of the Robots game source code, thus no BIOS file is needed. At this point this emulator can only play 'Rise of the Robots.' In order to be able to play this game you need an emulator installed. See the full list of available Philips CD-i emulators for this game. MedLaunch is a.NET (Windows only) front-end for the excellent Mednafen multi-system emulator. Production Releases. Latest Production Version: 0.5.25.3; Direct Production Download: LATEST. Background: I'm a newbie setting up my first emulator cabinet. I have a Windows7 x64 PC w 4GB RAM, ArcadeVGA 5000 video card, a fully wired cabinet (J-PAC, JAMMA harness), a Wells-Gardner k7401 25' CRT, and a set of ROMs for MAME 0.226 for 25 classic arcade games (1980s) which are the only games I intend to play.

In March 1986, the first public announcement was made of a new product – Compact Disc Interactive in the first industry conference in the US to promote CD-ROM. Because of this a provisional standard called The Green Book was later issued in May.

Initially, the Philips CD-i was not really promoted as a gaming platform although many hundreds of gaming titles were released. In advertising, Philips highlighted and pushed the CD-i’s Multimedia applications that the system was capable of performing. The CD-I video discs and not he interactive discs will play on most formats like the 3Do, Amiga CD32, PC’s and Apple MAC’s with MPEG as far as I’m aware.

Philips planned to create a software emulator in 1993 but it was not successfull. In 1993, Philips presented in its consumer catalog a CD-i set for use on your PC. It was a hardware emulation card connected via the ISA port to a Philips CD-ROM reader. It allowed you to playback CD-i titles on your PC, even with Digital Video support.

The Philips CD-i player 200 series includes the 205, 210 and 220 models. These models in the 200 series were designed for general consumption, and were available at major home electrical stores around the world. The Philips CD-i 910 was the most basic American version compared to that of the CD-i 205.

The Philips CD-i player 300 series includes the 310, 350, 360 and the 370 models. The 300 series consists of portable players designed for the professional market and not available to home consumers. A popular use for this range was by pharmaceuticals to provide product information to physicians, as the devices could be transported by sales representatives.

The Philips CD-i 400 series includes the 450, 470 and 490 models. The 400 series were slimmed-down units aimed at console and education markets. The CD-i 450 player was a budget model designed to compete with game consoles. It was in this version that a infrared remote control was not standard but optional.

Philips Cdi Emulator For Windows

The Philips CD-i 600 series includes the 601, 602, 604, 605, 615, 660 and the 670 models. The 600 series was designed for professional applications and software development. Units in this line generally include support for Floppy disk drives and keyboards as well as other computer peripherals. Some models can also be connected to an emulator and be used for software testing and debugging.

Later, four portable models were released that i know of and are quite rare. They are the CDi-310, CDi-350, CDi-360 and the CD-i370.

The CD-i 310 was the basic portable model featuring an intergrated 3.5″ floppy drive. The unit however did not have any kind of display or Digital Video Cartridge (DVC) so a 9142 Docking Station was Required.

The CD-i 350 was basically the same as the 310 requiring a 9142 docking station but the unit had a Sharp LCD screen built in.

The CD-i 360 i personally thought was the one to get. It still required the 9142 docking station but featured a high quaility Philips LCD display making it the first all in one CD-i.

The CD-i 370 was quite unique. The unit was more compact that the other units and featured a rechargable battery and an intergrated Digital Video Decoder. The main difference to this unit though was that it was built by LG Electronics (then Goldstar) but was based on their own portable CD-i.

Although most of the games written or ported for the CD-i were not very good, there is a cult following of the Nintendo-related games. The system itself, I thought, was not to bad and had a good build quality about it as well as being able to play music, illustrated encyclopedias and CD-i films which there was a vast library of.

A downside to the CD-i, I thought, was that films could only be played via the Digital Video Cartridge that was an add-on, and inserted at the rear of the console. Why could this not have been built-in . . .?

It is thought that the drawer on most CD-I’s stick and causes a problem for the drawer to open and close. In reality it is a combination of the drawer sliders become dry causing it to become difficult to open and also squeak and probably a stretched belt, this can be rectified with a few drops of 3-in1 oil on the drawer sliders and on the cog in the middle. Regarding the opening and closing of the drawer, the belt can be replaced quite easily (half an hour or so) if you take your time and can be purchased from most good electrical retailers i.e Maplins.

TOP TIP: Although belts can be purchased, i have known people to use a good quality elastic band as it stays tight and can lasts for years.

Cdi Emulator Online

It wasn’t until 1994 that the Philips CD-i was finally marketed as a gaming platform due to low sales. The price was dropped to $299.99 and the CD-i was released with a game known as Burn Cycle.

In 1995, Philips centered on the release of systems like Sega’s Saturn console and Sony’s Playstation. Later that year, Philips began to release versions of CD-i software for play on the Sega Saturn and PC. Unfortunately in the summer of 1996, Philips announced that they would be discontinuing the CD-i system. Reportedly, Philips lost close to one billion dollars on the console since its production in the US.

Magnavox also made versions of the CD-i that was released in the US. PhilipsandMagnavoxare well known for there joint ventures due to Philips acquiring Magnavox’s electronics division in 1974.

The Magnavox 550 CDi that i have is virtually the same as the Philips 400 series. I have been lucky enough to find these two systems both complete with all relative paperwork and in pristine condition as i have not used these systems for more than 1 hour from new.

Year Released: 1991
Original Price: £600
Buy It Now For: £50+
Associated magazines: CDi, CD-i, CD-i World, Generation CD-i
Why The CD-i Was Great: A complicated history, great potential, internet capabilities, a long list of fun though mostly unknown games, several exclusive Nintendo-licensed titles (most of which were rather good), and of course the ability to watch VCD films. The CD-i was an unloved underdog which, despite crippling problems and excessively high pricing, was in fact tremendous fun to use. Need for speed most wanted mac full. Thanks to low second-hand prices, now is the perfect time to indulge in some CD-i gaming goodness.

Few systems are as unfairly maligned and misrepresented, with regards to the ratio of potential quality and historical significance they had, as the Philips Compact Disc Interactive multimedia system. In some ways it may have been a terribly flawed system, but, and this has to be emphasised, there were also positive attributes, along with a list of historical precedents and high quality games. Its history is complex and shrouded in mistruths, while its lack of success in hindsight seems almost inevitable and the result of gross short-sightedness. It could have spearheaded a revolution, but instead it seems to have become a footnote in Nintendo’s history (there was more to the machine than those infamous licences).

The company Philips is a Dutch enigma. Formed in the city of Eindhoven, in 1891 (technically the second oldest company in the world to dabble in games, after Nintendo which is two years older), by brothers Gerard and Anton Philips. It made light bulbs. Philips moved on to other electrical items and, through repeated entries into the electronic multimedia and entertainment market (which had a cascading effect), set Holland apart from the rest of the world as a unique country with a fascinating locally concentrated videogame movement – one of the few (mostly isolated) countries along with Japan, America and the UK, which were all in a league of their own.

Philips’ first games hardware was the Videopac G7000 in 1978. Some years later the company became one of the first licensees for the MSX home-computer standard. With the hardware being so popular Holland’s MSX following became the biggest outside Japan. Philips’ next (and final) form of “games” hardware, the CD-i, would end up being inextricably connected to both Sony and Nintendo – look closely at the history of gaming and you’ll find that contrary to ignorant forumite screaming, most supposedly competing companies are forever jumping in and out of bed with each other in an orgy of behind-the-scenes business deals. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The Philips, Sony and Nintendo love-triangle goes back as far as the early-Eighties. During this time Philips and Sony began formulating the “Rainbow Books”, a curious name for a set of Compact Disc standards (several books were defined by or involved other groups, like Kodak). The Red Book standard (1980) is perhaps the best known and relates to music CDs, while the Green Book standard pertains to the CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive Full Functional Specification). This was defined by Sony, Microware Systems Corporation and Philips (estimated to have done 90 per cent of development).

This means that, while Sony’s first videogame hardware was the MSX standard, its first foray into CD based gaming was the CD-i, making the system something of a forerunner to the aborted SNES-CD which later became the PlayStation. Sony manufactured and released several personalised models of self-branded CD-i, including portables such as the IVO-V10. When the company decided to enter the hardware market alone, it was based on the fact that it had already both co-created and dabbled in the medium of CD-based games.

Ironically this also means that, regardless of your thoughts on the CD-i itself, every single games machine which can read CDs is in some way connected to these formative years of Philips and Sony research, and therefore also the related hardware. Were these living creatures, the CD-i would be the DNA ancestor of virtually everything using optical media today. Official Philips and CD-i representative/historian Jorg Kennis boldly proclaims such connections – Philips and Sony’s influence reaches further than anyone realises.

CD-i development (Green Book) began in the mid-Eighties jointly between Philips and Sony, which together decided to use Microware’s OS-9 Operating System in the machine, allowing real-time embedded application usage. Unfortunately several decisions were made which would ultimately lead to the system’s downfall. It was also terribly late in arriving. Speaking to the ever affable Dale DeSharone (see last issue), he explained the launch date was supposed to be in 1988, with the companies involved only planning to allow a single year for the system to be understood and launch software developed.

DeSharone left sunny California in 1987 to move to Boston Massachusetts and work fulltime at Spinnaker Software; his role was to create a CD-i development team. He explains, “Spinnaker had a deal with Philips to produce seven launch titles. I was brought on to help understand the capabilities of the platform and act as design lead.” As divulged last issue, his immediate supervisor was a member of the original Red Book specification team, Steve Yellick. Although a technological guru he didn’t know about making games, and after a year met with an unpleasant demise. Suddenly DeSharone was manager of the group and dealing with every facet of development. “I designed, programmed, wrote editing tools and engines, and hired and managed artists, programmers and audio engineers. We built Laser Lords, Alice In Wonderland, Sargon Chess, Paint School I and II, plus Story Machine I and II.”

Unfortunately they weren’t able to complete things in the allotted year. “I had originally planned to be at Spinnaker only one year as Philips was planning to release the machine in 1988. That one year turned into four, due to constant delays with the hardware emulation systems and the operating system. I think the launch was closer to 1991.”

This would prove to be one of Philips’ biggest mistakes, since the late arrival meant NEC were first on the market with a CD console (PC-Engine CD-ROM 2), and by the time the CD-i was available other CD systems were either already available or soon to be released (Commodore CDTV, Sega CD, etc). DeSharone spoke further on such problems. “Unfortunately for Philips, as each year passed, CD technology made more inroads into being a standard part of the PC and Mac computers. And, while the PC was getting more memory and faster processors, Philips chose to stay with the original 1987 specification using the 68000 chip. This was the original 68000 found in the first Macintosh computers. It was dreadfully slow and severely limited what was possible with the system.” So not only was the CD-i late, therefore missing a crucial market entry which may have saved it, the system was underpowered and overpriced. But Philips made further mistakes, the result being almost a comedy of errors.

Along with being comparatively underpowered, the CD-i had several inherent problems not anticipated by Philips. The late Silas Warner of Novalogic (Super Mario’s Wacky Worlds), in an interview with www.blackmoonproject.co.uk, explained that the system should have been easy to work with. “I had just been laid off from Amiga and Atari work at Microprose. Since my previous work had been with the 68000, it wasn’t hard to adjust to the crippled 68000 used in the CD-i. Like the Amiga, the CD-i had a ‘display list’ video structure in which every scan line was specified. The software architecture of the CD-i, in contrast, was wonderfully simple and elegant. The operating system was called OS9, and had the distinction that every program was relocatable.” But Warner also had some surprising truths to reveal. “There were bugs and glitches. The scan line interrupt, normally the highest priority interrupt in the system, was overridden by the joystick. This meant the display would jump up and down whenever the joystick was moved. This required quite a bit of ingenuity to overcome, and a method was worked out at the CD-i development conference in the spring of 1992. This kind of ‘patch’ was an example of the kind of flexible programming that OS9 made possible.” Luckily OS9 enabled a solution, but it’s shocking that months after the launch developers had to find workarounds for crippled hardware. Things were going to get worse for the CD-i before they got better…

Four Great CD-i Games

Secret Mission

Ram Raid

Burn Cycle

Pac-Panic

Read the full feature in Retro Gamer issue 32, on sale digitally from GreatDigitalMags.com

Retro Gamer magazine and bookazines are available in print from ImagineShop

Tags: CD-i, CDI, hardware, philips