CD-i member Ekim Skirdneh just shared an interesting bit of CD-i trivia with us. Ekim: "I have few CD-I remote controllers typ: COMMANDER 22ER9055. So I know that there where 2 version, with and without “Stand by” button. I now discovered that the CDI740 had a different Commander stick. Does someone has this later model or are there more version of this Controller?"
We've noticed variations in the CD-i pointing devices before with more buttons on certain (more expensive) models. The IR Thumbstick Commander is a nice example of this. This thumbstick was bundled with several CD-i players including the 210, 220 and others. When you compare the buttons that are hidden under the slider, you'll see that some versions have an extra button, the 'stand by button'.
But Ekim Skirdneh noticed a clear difference on the Thumbstick that was bundled with the CD-i 740, the most advanced CD-i player out there. As you can see in the picture of the CD-i 740 (with the thumbstick on top) you'll see the top button is divided in three little buttons. The buttons are actually too small to see what is on them and we don't have a CD-i 740 including thumbstick ourselves, but if Philips did the same as with the gamepad, they added an extra button that functions as button 1+2 together, like a button 3. It can also be that button one has an extra button on top and buttons 2 are next to it.
CD-i member Rosewood noticed that the manual even tells us that the two extra buttons under the slider specifically don't work on the CD-i 740 (The disc down button and the standby button)
Philips also did this with the wired thumbstick 22ER9019. This thumbstick was either sold seperately but it was also bundled with the CD-i 450. If you bought the CD-i 450, no extra buttons were added below the actual thumbstick. If you bought it seperately, it suddenly has extra buttons to control audio, just like the wireless thumbstick.
[Thanks, Ekim Skirdneh, Small Mart, Rosewood]