Commodore Amiga CDTV History and Restoration (T2T Pt1)

The Commodore Amiga CDTV, or Commodore CDTV as it was originally known is a bit of retro tech that I've wanted to research and restore for decades. This new Trash to Treasure ™ series does just that. This old computer sounds odd at first, appearing like a hifi music system it wouldn't look out of place sat on a VCR in your living room. But inside it's a full-blown Commodore Amiga 500 with extra bells and whistles. Designed to compete with similar devices such as the Philips CDi, the CDTV was championed by Atari VCS and Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and released in 1991. Dive into some more computer history and vintage computer restoration with me for the start of a new T2T series.

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●Chapters
0:00 - What is the Commodore Amiga CDTV?
2:38 - Who are PCBWay?
3:27 - Commodore CDTV History
7:53 - Nolan Bushnell interview
9:10 - Gail Wellington interview
13:45 - Commodore CDTV unboxing
19:26 - Commodore CDTV fault finding

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#CommodoreAmiga #CDTVResoration #TrashtoTreasure

[PeTTsn]

That interview with Gail Wellington was great - there are so many people behind the scenes who created things that countless people enjoyed (or dreamed about) throughout history, and there are already too many who aren't with us anymore. They deserve the recognition and some time to share their experiences and memories.
Heart-warming, inspiring and nostalgic, all at once.

[GadgetUK]

Very cool! Enjoyed the Gail Wellington interview!

[MichaelChristoffersen]

Nice to see that Gail Wellington is still around. Our dear Mother of Amiga :)

[bcbock]

The woman shown demoing a “Thinking Game” on the CDTV at CES was Laura Buddine of Tiger Media. Tiger developed two games for the CDTV. The one shown is The Case of the Cautious Condor. The other was Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows. Several years later, Laura became my mentor, employer, friend, and ultimately my business partner. We were in the process of recreating The Case of the Cautious Condor with new, more modern art for modern devices when she sadly passed away. I haven’t had the heart to continue that project. If she hadn’t died, she would have had a LOT of stories to tell you about CDTV and working with them. I’m glad you are documenting these things before everyone who worked on them passes.

I’m ashamed to admit that when we cleaned out her house after she died, we threw out an old CDTV dev kit. I didn’t work on it, so I don’t know what was different. I do remember the funky remote control. This was before all the retro mania was obvious to us.

[noodles]

gail wellington bless her heart still remembers past events, i just love these developer interviews it sheds light on the item we love created by them.

[ightbytes]

Total respect for Gail Wellington....a Legend and an Iconic woman in the story of the CDTV

Such an intimate inside take on the CDTV history...its inception, its launch, the marvel it was and, the ultimate failure it become..

Great Video Neil.

[carledwards]

What a truly amazing story, and that you managed to get an interview with a key person: incredible!
This is why your channel is well worth subscribing to and watching.
So much invaluable information and some truly wonderful people!

[kosmosyche]

Looks so classy! I adore 90's design of electronics.

[bazza]

wow!! gail wellington.. incredible.. bet she had some amazing stories..

[niino]

The caps inside the power supply as well as the caps on the CD-drive board do often leak (no bulging). You should take a look at them.
Another possible fault might be the disc detection microswitch on the drive board - they can still be bought from mouser, digikey etc, so replacing them is simple. (Model is Panasonic ESE-11SH1C)

[kranibal]

What a great interview segment with Gail!

[thepillock]

Great to hear from Gail and hear her memories from the frontline of the multimedia battles. Can't wait for the next installment! I'm feeling very guilty about my CDTV being on the shelf gathering dust for so long.

[slaine]

Great to hear directly from Gale, nice work Neil. I remember drooling over these in the high street store as a teenager. Really looking forward to the rest of this one 👍

[chrisransdell]

Ooh a cliffhanger. And it was a treat hearing from Gail. I've heard her a few times and she seems like a fascinating person.

[Jawlf]

I love my CDTV and it is wonderful to see you looking after one and from a box!!! I am lucky to have CDTV keyboard and mouse with mine. SCSI was a good addition, but the SCSI2SD adapter was strange. I recieved a newer model and this would not boot, however upon trying an older version of the SCSI2SD it did work and now boots happily, giving me a full Amiga experience!! Finally the memory upgrade and extended ROM sets were also added! Loving the video and informationyou have found, especially the Gail Wellington interview.

[stevenpurvey]

Hi Neil, I am one of those strange people that bought one of these back in 1992. I wanted it badly when I first saw it in Dixons coupled to a black keyboard, black mouse, black floppy and black SCSI hard drive (a huge 40Mb as I recall). So I bought the whole lot in one go at an outrageous price (my brain has repressed the memory of the price, but it was under £1000).

After over 20 years in a cupboard, I connected it all together last year to see if it still worked and amazingly...
... it did! Even the hard drive burst into life - amazing.

Good luck with your latest project; I look forward to part 2.

And you are right, the SCSI card goes in the back expansion port.

-Steve

[DeathMetalDerf]

The interview was especially awesome! What an incredible gift to be able to get that level of detail on the CDTV! I can't tell you how excited I am for the next video!

[Brian-vssd]

I had one of these. I remember being so impressed with Groliers encyclopaedia. No one else could see my fascination. Thanks Gail for producing this wonderful product. It was a product both before it's time and past its time.

[geekwithsocialskills]

Thank you for the link and video shout out for the Welcome Video Tour. The CDTV is awesome! I've been piecing my unit together since 2011 and in 2020 I finally tracked down the black keyboard for mine. Looking forward to your next videos on the CDTV!

[XGJP]

Graham here, a pleasure hooking you up mate, fantastic video and so pleased it has found a good home 😊