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From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita)
Subject: Re: CDTV misleading???!? Air Mouse and things.
Message-ID: <1991Jun5.002829.22492@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
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Organization: Columbia University
References: <1991Jun4.204135.17497@cs.wayne.edu>
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Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1991 00:28:29 GMT

In article <1991Jun4.204135.17497@cs.wayne.edu> jal@athena.cs.wayne.edu (Jason Leigh) writes:
>
>I was at the Chicago CES yesterday and I spoke to Commodore about CDTV.
>The representative told me that if I bought a CDROM drive for my
>Amiga I still could not run CDTV software.  CDTV is not just a 500 with
>a CD player.  There is evidently additional hardware to improve its
>sound capabilities (of course).
>
	Most current CDTV programs do run on Amigas with a Xetec
drive. However, that is more expensive than CDTV and will not
likely work with all future software as more and more of it take
advantage of whatever is taking up that extra 256K in the ROMs.

>Also in terms of misleading the consumer, Commodore was advertising its
>A500 for about $500.  For the $500 you don't get a monitor but
>instead you get the A520 video adapter that lets you plug your 500 to a
>TV set at home.  I hate to be the consumer who is going to be disappointed
>at the grungy display on his/her TV at home.
>
	It isn't misleading unless the dealer tells you you're
getting a monitor. As I see it, there are three possibilities:
You are a novice and didn't expect a monitor.
You are a novice and the dealer tricked you.
You are experienced and were stupid for not making sure a monitor
is included.

	Since when have you EVER heard of a company including the
monitor in the price of a computer. $500 is for the A500, plus
you get $250 (or whatever the latest ads say) in free hardware
and software.

>Magnavox came out with its CDI (CD Interactive) multimedia competitor for
>CDTV.  Essentially the system is like the CDTV system but the software
>available for CDTV was far more interesting.  CDTV has the advantage
>over CDI of being expandable to accomodate, a keyboard, printer, disk drive
>and in the future some other form of expansion.  The representative at 
>Magnavox told me that the CDI was not expandable in anyway, or at least
>Magnavox had no intentions of allowing for attachments.  I was however
>quite impressed by the clarity of CDI's images over CDTV's.
>
	Was that image on a monitor or a TV? BTW, it is also a
good sign that non of the CD-I machines that are coming onto the
market this Christmas are expandable. It'll be an image problem.

>One other thing that was very interesting (which complemented CDTV and CDI
>very well) was the Air Mouse.  This is an infra-red pointing device which
>is tracked by a receiver.  The receiver would then send the signals to the
>CDTV or CDI and cause a movement in the cursor on the screen.  It has
>great potential for graphical slide presentations, and it works very well
>with CDTV's kids paint program.  The professional model ($500) works with the
>IBM, Mac, Amiga.  The consumer version ($99) works only with CDTV and CDI.
>
	Third party products already! Wow!

>Jason Leigh
>jal@cs.wayne.edu
>
>
>--
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Darkness won't engulf my head,		Try to count electric sheep,
I can see by infrared,			Sweet dream wishes you can keep,
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