Philips CD Interactive

Performa

Performa

Member
In the 1990's, Sony and Nintendo worked together for a CD add-on to the Super Nintendo to compete with SEGA's SEGA-CD system. Nintendo wasn't keen on the tremendous control the "PlayStation" project gave Sony over them, so they backed out of the deal and Sony decided to press ahead on their own. Nintendo then turned to European Electronics manufacturer Philips to see what they could do. While a CD add on never materialized, Philips did get some rights to Nintendo's properties, and a foot in the door of the video game world. Thus was born the CD-Interactive.

Part music player, multimedia center, education machine, movie player, and video game console, the CD-I system sought to become a "one stop shop" for home entertainment. As Commodore had learned with their CDTV before, the technology wasn't quite there yet.

Held back by a monstrous price tag, expensive software of dubious quality, and marketing that also seemed confused as to what the machine was for left the CD-I in the dust.

...and now we have one!



This is a Model 220 Philips CDI, the earlier "VCR" model- and a US version at that. These sold better in Europe, which is where most are listed.

Before embarking on this adventure, I did some homework. There are a lot of CDI models from a few different manufacturers, and they all command silly prices on eBay. I finally settled on the Model 220 as it's reported to be "more reliable" than some later models, doesn't have the strange proprietary external power supply, and of all the systems, has the most documentation readily available. Then I went looking, and finally found this model listed "as-is/not working" and from what I'd read about it, it should be a quick fix.

The two problems inherent to CDI players are drive belts that turn to goop, and a clock battery that burns out. Unlike other systems, the CDI is an oddball with it's battery. It uses a coin cell battery, but for reasons known only to Philips, they elected to embed the battery into the clock chip on the motherboard. this means that to get in and replace it, one must physically cut the battery out of the chip. Without it, the system won't save data, certain programs won't run, and on some models the system won't boot at all. I knew going into this that the Model 220 will still boot and run most software even if the battery is dead, so I was fairly confident this would work out in our favor.



I'm pleased to say that, as far as I can test it now, it did.
 
Performa

Performa

Member
The remote (which does work!) suffered some minor damage in shipping. The thumb pad on the joystick broke off, but I'm pretty sure I can glue it back together.



However, playing with this remote is far from ideal for gaming, so I want some "actual" controllers for it. As CDI controllers cost the same if not more than a whole machine, I'm looking down the mod route to see if we can build some of our own. Some project documentation exists already (HERE) and another article I can't find again that explained how to adapt PC game port controllers to work on the CDI. Theoretically, all you need is the right pin out and adapter to plug something else into the CDI.

After that, games! Original gam disks are also difficult to track down, and wildly expensive. I have found a source for reproductions for some games, though for testing purposes, I plan to create some media to start with. The CDI came out in a time before the widespread adoption of home CD burners, so it lacks any sort of copy protection that would be found on later systems like the Sony PlayStation or Sega Saturn. So, gathering some ROMs from various archival sources, I can create some media to test with. When we ultimately take the system to public shows, we are allowed to use those pieces of software under fair use for educational purposes.

This is a system pretty much everyone has "heard" about, but few have ever seen- let alone played. I'm excited that we'll be able to give this thing a spin soon, and then share it with the public at large! I expect quite a few people will be keen to give it a whirl- it is kinda legendary online!

 
Performa

Performa

Member
I got the CDI open, and replaced the belt. Probably the hardest part of the whole operation, if I'm honest.



The CDI is one PCB, running a modified Motorolla 68000 processor and a bunch of unique chips. The oddball CD drive is on the left, power supply on the right, and the center is the holder for the Digital Video Decoder Cartridge, if the system ever got one. The "DVC" was an expensive add-on to an already expensive machine, and many CDI's that were used as kiosks and the like never got them- and they are expensive and hard to find today. This means we won't be able to watch any of the movies that were released on the CDI format, but that's about it.

The system's other fault to address at some point is the timekeeper battery will need to be removed and replaced. Phillips embedded the battery into the epoxy shell of the chip itself, so there's no way to get to it without cutting the battery physically out of the machine. On some other systems this is vital as the machine won't boot up without it, but this early model system simply doesn't keep time and can't save games to memory.

I'll get the clock battery cut free and replaced at some point, but for the time being, this will be fine for our applications. The people trying this machine out probably won't notice.
 
Performa

Performa

Member
Now, onto the software front! My burned games didn't seem to work, so I reached out to Reddit, and was directed that the write speed I have on the burned disks might have been too high, or that the machine itself wasn't "calibrated" for them. It would play audio CD's, so I knew it "worked" but none of the games would boot. The suggested fix was to use a genuine CDI disk to try and get it working that way- again, something about the speed of the drive itself.

So, I went to eBay, and looked for the cheapest piece of genuine CDI media I could find and landed on this!







The "Art of the Czars" is a "multimedia presentation" that I'd describe as a DVD menu connecting short narrated segments over still images or very short snippets of video. For 1991 it's mighty impressive, as is it's professional clamshell packaging.

While it's a little dated (a reference to Russia's "peaceful future" from the publication date of 1991 is a little amiss today) it's exactly the sort of thing I would have expected to see in a classroom when I was in school, albeit via DVD instead.



Oh, it worked too!



Apologies for the moiré pattern on the TV, the camera picks it up really badly on the Daewoo for some reason. It looks pretty sharp in person!
 
Performa

Performa

Member
Now, this does leave the question of whether the machine needs to be "calibrated" each time it restarts (assuming that ties back to the dead battery) or not. I'm going to do some more testing, and will report back my findings!
 
Performa

Performa

Member
Time for an update!

So, I burned games to disk, and they didn't work. I tried a few more methods to help them be read, but that didn't work. Thanks to the working "real" CDI disk, I felt fairly confident the problem wasn't in the machine, but with the disks I was creating. I dug through Reddit posts, forum threads, and finally YouTube videos for some answer. One YouTuber suggested a software called "DiscJuggler" to make these disks, and I regret to say that I spent an age just trying to get that software to function- and it still didn't create the disks I needed. I was really starting to worry that I'd misjudged this project, when I found this:



I'm familiar with ImgBurn, but have never used it on compressed files. It never occurred to me. Somehow this process bypasses the ImgBurn iso verification check, and burns the media straight on. Here's the result:



In summary:



The Philips CD-I is fully operational, and will make it's public debut at EverCon in Wausau in January. It'll be at our next library show after that, and probably the next couple shows after that if people aren't tired of seeing it. 😁
 
Pezdude

Pezdude

Active member
Performa said:
Time for an update!

So, I burned games to disk, and they didn't work. I tried a few more methods to help them be read, but that didn't work. Thanks to the working "real" CDI disk, I felt fairly confident the problem wasn't in the machine, but with the disks I was creating. I dug through Reddit posts, forum threads, and finally YouTube videos for some answer. One YouTuber suggested a software called "DiscJuggler" to make these disks, and I regret to say that I spent an age just trying to get that software to function- and it still didn't create the disks I needed. I was really starting to worry that I'd misjudged this project, when I found this:



I'm familiar with ImgBurn, but have never used it on compressed files. It never occurred to me. Somehow this process bypasses the ImgBurn iso verification check, and burns the media straight on. Here's the result:



In summary:



The Philips CD-I is fully operational, and will make it's public debut at EverCon in Wausau in January. It'll be at our next library show after that, and probably the next couple shows after that if people aren't tired of seeing it. 😁
Click to expand...
Can’t wait to try out Hotel Mario!
 
Performa

Performa

Member
Alright, we have controllers now! We have a real* controller on the left, and a "real" controller on the right.



I picked up the trackball first, but fearing it wouldn't be much better than the infrared wireless controller we already have for playing games, I went ahead and bit the proverbial bullet- ordering an Arduino-powered translator device off of eBay. They cost about the same in the end.

Both have been tested, and they both work great. The trackball needed some cleanup, but it wasn't even too bad. Now, which one is better?

For games, the Arduino is the winner, hands down. It allows us to plug in a stock SEGA Genesis controller, and it's quick and responsive. Still much cheaper than trying to source a "real-real" CDI controller, which will give everyone who tries the machine the best possible experience with the games we have available to us.

The trackball, on the other hand, is best suited for the "other" titles that play more like DVD menus. These include the "art" titles and the "edutainment" style games. The Genesis D-Pad isn't at all a substitute for a mouse, and while the wireless remote isn't bad, the trackball is perfect. Inadvertently, we have the best of both worlds.

Also, the trackball was intended to connect to the CDI that was located across the room- and it has the longest cord I've ever seen on a stock peripheral. It's 12 feet long!

 
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