CD-i member Philippe Priolet shared with us his repairing and dusting work that he did on his Quizard Arcade CD-i unit. He owns this classic Quizard arcade machine, which is actually based on CD-i technology. We always wonder in what kind of places these units were originally used! But in sales they have popped up a few times, giving us the opportunity to look inside them. This one was based on a CD-i 210 player. After cleaning it thoroughly, the looks are so much different: It's really polished and modern looking now. One interesting detail is that this one is in the French language, while we thought the Quizard titles were German only. The MCU board inside is connected to the CD-i player and as well connects the buttons so it serves as a real arcade machine.
Do you remember the QuizardArcade machines? These are interesting Arcades as they were based on CD-i technology; A fully operational CD-i 210 is inside and connected to a MCU board, built inside an arcade cabinet. The company behind this is TAB Austria (which actually still exists nowadays). This CD-I based quiz-system uses an Standard CD-I Player and an external Jamma-PCB which is connected to the CD-I Player over the serial port on the back of the Player. The Jamma PCB has an MCU (D8751H) as a copy protection on it and by starting the game, the CD-I player communicates over the serial port with the MCU. There are 4 different CD-Versions for the Quizard (1, 2, 3 and 4) and a couple of different revisions for each version. For example version 1 got 8 different revisions (1.0 to 1.7). To play a version you need the matching MCU for it! So to play any revision of version 1 you a need an MCU for version 1. The same goes for version 2, 3 and 4. So you can not play a version 1 CD with the MCU from version 4... The Quizard machine we see here is playing Quizard 3, see below.
TAB Austria produced arcade cabinets based on CD-i technology. These days, there is no support anymore for these arcades, so if you have a broken unit, you have to repair it yourself. This blue version is the Quizard 4, the final Arcade Cabinet based on CD-i technology. As you can see below, a CD-i 210 is inside.
Recently, Team Europe redesigned the MCU board inside so you can play the Quizard CD-i games on your own CD-i player. the push buttons are included on the board and there is no external power needed anymore. With the included pins on the board, you can even use it inside an arcade-cabinet as a real replacement for the original board! If you're interested in buying this piece of CD-i homebrew hardware, please check this article.
[Thanks, Philippe Priolet]