CD-i member Jorne/MrMii6 explores the possibilities of his newly obtained CD-i 180/181/182 set. With the help of mainly cdifan and retrostuff, more and more details are covered and we summarize the important findings to keep track in our CD-i archive.
...This is a little note that was taped to the 180/181/182 I have. hen put under the scanner it's just readable. Some support company in Los Angeles. Anyone recognize the name? Any idea what connection it has to Philips or the CD-i devkit? ...
...this floppy was inside the devkit. Thought for a sec it said NES boot, but it's actually NFS boot. Would have been neat if this were perhaps an NES emulator for the CD-i. I know NFS is a protocol for sharing files over a network so perhaps this unit was at one point connected to a fileserver...
...No ethernet, but there is an expansion of some sort, one with a 15 pin connector (kinda looks like a PC joystick port) Also a BNC connecter, could also be coax tho, not sure...
...Currently working a bit on the 181 first, looks to be surprisingly clean on the inside given how dirty and rusty the outside is. The battery inside hasn't leaked yet, so that's a relief. (also, why were these easy-to-replace batteries not standard on consumer CD-i's)...
...The battery still outputs 2.6v. Impressive for a battery from July 1989. 2.6 is close enough to 3v that I might just turn the unit on without replacing the battery first, maybe that 2.6 is still enough for data to remain stored. Or it could just be for keeping the time, not sure if these units have battery backed ram...
...It says sanyo "laser lithium", a 3v battery, manufactured in July 1989. It looks completely clean, no leaks, no bulging, no corrosion. Very surprising too be honest, I've seen my fair share of batteries destroying motherboard while working on vintage PC's...
...This is the front of the unit. 3 controller/remote/mouse ports. No serial ports on the side...
...The keyboard and mouse ports are indeed 9 pin mini din. The 'control' port is an 8 pin one however. Random thought and probably not: but could PC engine controllers work? ...
...So, by some miracle the battery actually managed to keep the time for all these years. I did not set the time, this is how it was set. There's also still a name stored on the unit "CORTOS_1.1" ...
...Even better news, my RC5 remote works perfectly fine with the unit, which is amazing news to me since I now have a way to control it. That's all for today, time to get some sleep now, but this is some pretty exciting stuff to me...
...This is the networking expansion board that was inside the 182 unit. Looks like a fairly simple design but I love the dark green, almost black PCB. There's a reference to this board in the manual for the 182 but I can't find any pics of it online. I'll clean the card tomorrow and take a few pics with a better cam...
...I cleaned the floppy and decided to try and load it on the 182 after cleaning it. Sadly, it does not load, but at least it can read the name. Also cleaned the drive heads so I'm afraid this disk is toast...
... Got mediamogul loaded up. Took a darn long time to load gotta say...
...Tried booting into media mogul again but it never gets past this screen. Always showing that hourglass cursor. Disc just stops spinning. Tried burning a new one at slowest speed, no difference. Any ideas? ...
(>you probably need to connect it to a terminal! More when it develops!)
[Thanks, Jorne/MrMii6]