A brief history of the Amiga

The rise and fall of CDTV

Commodore's first multimedia CD-ROM system, CDTV (Commodore Dynamic Total Vision) made its debut in 1991. It was basically an Amiga 500, together with with Kickstart 1.3 and a CD-ROM drive. The CDTV was operated by a user-friendly infra-red remote control. The same year, the option of turning the CDTV on a full A500 was made available. Commodore hoped to sneak it into the homes of "computerphobes".

Unfortunately, the CDTV was a disaster. Commodore also didn't put the Amiga logo, anywhere on the CDTV. As a result, CDTV failed to catch the public's imagination, partly because it was £3200 more expensive than an A500, and partly because the software available was disappointing. Only 50 CDs went on sale, but the games were no better than their floppy counterparts.

Continued: Amiga 600 / Amiga 1200 / Amiga 4000

• Introduction
• The Beginning of a New Era
• Year of the Dream Machine
• Amiga 500 / Amiga 2000
• Amiga 500+ / Amiga 3000
• The rise and fall of CDTV
• Amiga 600 / Amiga 1200 / Amiga 4000
• The Rise and Fall of CD32
• Bidder after Bidder after Bidder... (or is that "Bitter?")
• Gateway buys the Amiga technology
• Amiga Continues
• Another development twist
• Final Thoughts