The Philips CD-i (Compact Disc Interactive) player was a 16-bit CD ROM based system that was released to us in 1991 priced $699.00.
In March 1986, the first public announcement was made of a new product – Compact Disc Interactive in the first industry conference in the US to promote CD-ROM. Because of this a provisional standard called The Green Book was later issued in May.
Philips Cdi Emulator Online
Initially, the Philips CD-i was not really promoted as a gaming platform although many hundreds of gaming titles were released. In advertising, Philips highlighted and pushed the CD-i’s Multimedia applications that the system was capable of performing. The CD-I video discs and not he interactive discs will play on most formats like the 3Do, Amiga CD32, PC’s and Apple MAC’s with MPEG as far as I’m aware.
The Philips CD-i player 200 series includes the 205, 210 and 220 models. These models in the 200 series were designed for general consumption, and were available at major home electrical stores around the world. The Philips CD-i 910 was the most basic American version compared to that of the CD-i 205.
Philips Cdi Emulator Android
CoolROM.com's game information and ROM download page for CD-i Bios (MAME). CD-i Emulator a Philips - CDi Emulator on the Windows platform Philips - CDi emulators list. This emulator provides a fairly complete emulation of the hardware of an actual physical CD-i player. Electron mac app preact controller. Experimental Philips CD-I emulator written in C. Emulator cplusplus cpp emulation wxwidgets cdi philips cd-i Updated. Not compatible, CD-i uses custom Philips 68070, Neo uses in most cases a TMP68HC000 which would only be backwards software compatible (The CD-i's CPU is faster clocked 15.5 versus 12, so you could theoretically use it's chip in a Neo by splitting the clock, but not reverse) and the Genesis has a slower clocked CPU as well, but a generic off the shelf m68k @ 7.67mhz.
The Philips CD-i player 300 series includes the 310, 350, 360 and the 370 models. The 300 series consists of portable players designed for the professional market and not available to home consumers. A popular use for this range was by pharmaceuticals to provide product information to physicians, as the devices could be transported by sales representatives.
The Philips CD-i 400 series includes the 450, 470 and 490 models. The 400 series were slimmed-down units aimed at console and education markets. The CD-i 450 player was a budget model designed to compete with game consoles. It was in this version that a infrared remote control was not standard but optional.
The Philips CD-i 600 series includes the 601, 602, 604, 605, 615, 660 and the 670 models. The 600 series was designed for professional applications and software development. Units in this line generally include support for Floppy disk drives and keyboards as well as other computer peripherals. Some models can also be connected to an emulator and be used for software testing and debugging.
Later, four portable models were released that i know of and are quite rare. They are the CDi-310, CDi-350, CDi-360 and the CD-i370.
The CD-i 310 was the basic portable model featuring an intergrated 3.5″ floppy drive. The unit however did not have any kind of display or Digital Video Cartridge (DVC) so a 9142 Docking Station was Required.
The CD-i 350 was basically the same as the 310 requiring a 9142 docking station but the unit had a Sharp LCD screen built in.
The CD-i 360 i personally thought was the one to get. It still required the 9142 docking station but featured a high quaility Philips LCD display making it the first all in one CD-i.
The CD-i 370 was quite unique. The unit was more compact that the other units and featured a rechargable battery and an intergrated Digital Video Decoder. The main difference to this unit though was that it was built by LG Electronics (then Goldstar) but was based on their own portable CD-i.
Although most of the games written or ported for the CD-i were not very good, there is a cult following of the Nintendo-related games. The system itself, I thought, was not to bad and had a good build quality about it as well as being able to play music, illustrated encyclopedias and CD-i films which there was a vast library of.
A downside to the CD-i, I thought, was that films could only be played via the Digital Video Cartridge that was an add-on, and inserted at the rear of the console. Why could this not have been built-in . . .?
It is thought that the drawer on most CD-I’s stick and causes a problem for the drawer to open and close. In reality it is a combination of the drawer sliders become dry causing it to become difficult to open and also squeak and probably a stretched belt, this can be rectified with a few drops of 3-in1 oil on the drawer sliders and on the cog in the middle. Regarding the opening and closing of the drawer, the belt can be replaced quite easily (half an hour or so) if you take your time and can be purchased from most good electrical retailers i.e Maplins.
TOP TIP: Although belts can be purchased, i have known people to use a good quality elastic band as it stays tight and can lasts for years.
Watch this video on YouTube
It wasn’t until 1994 that the Philips CD-i was finally marketed as a gaming platform due to low sales. The price was dropped to $299.99 and the CD-i was released with a game known as Burn Cycle.
In 1995, Philips centered on the release of systems like Sega’s Saturn console and Sony’s Playstation. Later that year, Philips began to release versions of CD-i software for play on the Sega Saturn and PC. Unfortunately in the summer of 1996, Philips announced that they would be discontinuing the CD-i system. Reportedly, Philips lost close to one billion dollars on the console since its production in the US.
Magnavox also made versions of the CD-i that was released in the US. PhilipsandMagnavoxare well known for there joint ventures due to Philips acquiring Magnavox’s electronics division in 1974.
The Magnavox 550 CDi that i have is virtually the same as the Philips 400 series. I have been lucky enough to find these two systems both complete with all relative paperwork and in pristine condition as i have not used these systems for more than 1 hour from new.
A Windows Front-End for Mednafen
MedLaunch is a .NET (Windows only) front-end for the excellent Mednafen multi-system emulator.
Production Releases
- Latest Production Version: 0.5.25.3
- Direct Production Download: LATEST
- Compatible with Mednafen: 0.9.39.x - 1.21.1
Official production releases happen when the team are happy after testing. The frequency of these releases has decreased over time, so users should look to the dev builds to get new features and compatibility early.
Development Release
A rolling development version of MedLaunch is now automatically built and released everytime a change is pushed to the dev branch on GitHub.
- The latest development build can always be found HERE
The development releases should usually be stable, but it is advisable to backup your MedLaunch directory before upgrading.
Note: Development builds do NOT currently appear within GitHub releases and are NOT available through the MedLaunch internal updater.
Features
- No installation required (and no data is written outside of the MedLaunch folder)
- Local (SQLite) auto-generated database where all settings are saved
- Can import existing mednafen configuration options
- Responsive UI
- Customizable color scheme
- Scaleable to aid usability on a wide range of resolutions
- Supports versions of Mednafen 0.9.39.x - 1.21.1 (latest)
- Nearly all Mednafen config parameters are supported and configurable through the launcher
- With the exception of control configuration parameters, all config settings are stored internally on per-emulated system basis
- On game launch a {system}.cfg file is generated (so that per-system configurations can be utilized outside of MedLaunch)
- Built-in update checking (with manual ability to grab the latest MedLaunch and supported Mednafen x64 binaries)
- Customizable games library
- Hide/show individual mednafen emulated systems and games library columns
- Multi-column sorting and dynamic search
- Library sorting and column sizing/positioning state saved on a per-filter basis
- Sidebar that shows game information, boxart, screenshots, manuals etc. (once the game has been scraped)
- Auto scan and import of ROM based games
- Imports all standard ROM formats that mednafen supports
- Extended archive support - will import single or multiple ROMs from within .zip or .7z files
- Auto scan and import of Disc based games (PSX, Saturn, PCFX & PCE-CD)
- Multi-disc games must have their files residing in the same directory or sub-directory
- Auto-generation of .m3u playlist files for multi-disc games
- DAT data lookup on import
- MedLaunch ships with a DAT database that combines NoIntro, Tosec, PsxDataCenter & Satakore information that enables detailed information (Country, Year, Publisher etc) to be populated in the games library upon import
- ROM (and some disc-based system) files are matched based on MD5 hash
- PSX and Saturn discs are matched based on game serial number lookup (that is obtained by interogating the disc image itself)
- Online scraping of game data/media/docs
- Auto and manual scraping of data from thegamesdb and mobygames
- PDF manuals downloaded from replacementdocs
- Configuration of mednafen controls
- DirectInput and XInput are fully supported - covering keyboard, standard gamepads/joysticks and XInput devices (xbox/playstation controllers etc.)
- Configure nearly all emulated gamepad/joystick/wheel etc. devices for all virtual input ports for every emulated system
- Standard mouse bindings can be inserted using pre-defined templates
- Extended game launch functionality
- Last played and total game time stats recorded on a per-game basis
- Option to remember mednafen window/screen position (on a per-emulated system basis) and re-apply this on game launch (useful for people with multi-monitor setups)
- Choose the CD image that should be inserted when mednafen starts (in the case of multi-disc games)
- Edit the mednafen launch string before running the game
- Option to copy launch string to clipboard (for use in other frontends or batch files)
- Built-in netplay server list (with pre-populated servers)
- Browser control with links to the mednafen and medlaunch websites
Requirements
- At least Mednafen version 0.9.39.1 - 64-bit version required for Saturn games
- Windows 7 and above (may work on Vista but has not been tested)
- x64 (has not been tested on x86 but should still work on it)
Download
You can always get the latest release build of MedLaunch on the GitHub Releases page. I am actively working on code in the Dev Branch and you can see the active changes for the next release on the ChangeLog. These pre-release changes will be released when I am happy with them, so please do not ask for builds ahead of the official releases. You can of course get yourself a copy of Visual Studio Community installed and build it yourself from the dev branch.
You can download the latest version of Mednafen from the Mednafen website.
Philips Cdi Emulator Download
New Install
- Extract this release to a folder, run the 'MedLaunch.exe' executable and choose your Mednafen directory (must be 64-bit version if you want to emulate Saturn games).
- You are then prompted to choose whether to import all config settings from your Mednafen folder into the MedLaunch database (this is recommended).
- If you currently use system-specific config files with Mednafen the settings from these will be imported with the above process. However MedLaunch will write to these files when you launch a game - so back them up somewhere if you are not happy with this.
Upgrade
Preferred Method:
Philips Cdi Emulator Apk
- Automatically download and upgrade using the 'Updates' tab within MedLaunch itself.
- Once MedLaunch has upgraded, go to the 'Configs' tab and click the 'IMPORT ALL CONFIGS FROM DISK' button
Manual Method:
- You can safely extract this new release over an existing MedLaunch folder (providing you do not have MedLaunch running at the time)
- Once extracted run the MedLaunch.exe executable and your current database will be upgraded before the application starts proper.
- Once MedLaunch has upgraded, go to the 'Configs' tab and click the 'IMPORT ALL CONFIGS FROM DISK' button
Download
Check out the Releases page or the project on GitHub.
Build From Source
The project has been built using Visual Studio Community 2015. It may or may not work with previous versions.
Philips Cdi Emulator For Windows
- Clone the dev (or master) branch (or download as zip)
- Open MedLaunch.sln in VisualStudio
- Restore NuGet packages
- Cross your fingers?