One of the great additions of CD-i magazines was that they actually sent out a few demo discs. In The Netherlands we had the Micro Machines preview disc in October 1995 and the demo CD-Online disc together with the December issue of 1995. In 1996, the first online disc was shared with the UK CD-i magazine (february), the one without Ram Raid. The one that introduced Ram Raid was bundled a few months later, around october 1996. In The Netherlands we received a third CD-Online disc in 1997 together with CD-i Magazine. Maybe in other countries the demo discs with previews/highlights/gameclips were also bundled with CD-i Magazine. In The Netherlands, those demo video cd's were bundled with the CD-i catalogue. The catalogue was sent out via the CD-i Gold Club (they sent the CD-i catalogue to your home address free of charge every 6 months or so.)
Please let us know if you lived in a different country and received a different CD-i Magazine and/or preview discs, we love to know more about it. The picture below is from the first CD-Online disc in UK, but this is a re-released version simply named "Enhanced version". In this way, they updated the original disc with new updates, including Ram Raid. Not to confuse with the original first CD-Online disc! They did the same thing with the dutch CD-Online disc, simply naming the original 'disc 01' now 'v2'.
In The Netherlands, the dutch CD-i Magazine was bundled with a demo-disc of CD-Online in early 1996. It was just an environment to experience what would be possible next year, there was no option to actually go online. But I remember I loved the graphics (all digital video) and the idea of going through these menus!
[Thanks, Daniel Hyatt]