omegalfa – The world of CD-i

CD-i Quizard MCU boards now available!

Team Europe that have developped the MCU’s board and also responsable for the MCU’s decapping proudly announced on there blog that some boards are ready for you!

You can read the article dedicated to the MCU’s decapping right here!
The price is 45€ and you can count with 15€ for shipping cost in Europe. The payment method is PayPal and if there is still available boards, the shipment is very quick!
For now the board doesn’t includes Quizard 2, but a further release of the MCU is planned. An important fact to remember… All Quizards titles are only in German!
To play the games you will need the CD-i discs of the corresponding MCU placed on the board, original discs aren’t needed as you can easily find ISO’s other the internet.

How to buy?
Comment his blog’s article and ask for one (or more…)

The package will contain:– Interface-board (ready to use)
– 1x Arduino MEGA case.
– 3x MCU’s (for Version 1, 3 and 4 – GERMAN)
– 1x serial cable

Let’s take a closer look ate the board:If you have or are able to get an arcade cabinet, with this board, you can connect to external buttons and recreate the sensation of the glory days!

Great work Team Europe!

Latest additions on the site – June/July 2019

The World of CD-i website is in constant updates.
We are always adding information like new titles, covers, screenshots, videos, etc…
Our website members are a great value for us, this is why we encourage you to register, this way you’ll be able to add yourself new stuff. We always add credits to our contributors!

Games
Asterix® – Caesar’s Challenge (German covers)
Battleship® (German back cover)
BMP Puzzle (covers)
Burn Cycle (French covers)
Flintstones Jetsons – Timewarp (covers)
International Tennis Open – 2 Players Version (credits: Marco Parisio Java – Italian covers)
Mad Dog McCree™ (credits: Marco Parisio Java – Italian covers)

Multimedia
Achterhoek Magazine (credits: Calibraco – covers)
ADI 5ème – Français et Maths (Arethius_RGC – covers)
Baby (credits: Arethius_RGC – Title Addition)
Beauty Guide (credits: Arethius_RGC – covers)
De Filmmaand (covers)
Hondenliefde (covers)
In the Wake of Captain Cook (covers)
Let’s go skiing with Alberto Tomba (credits: Marco Parisio Java – covers)
Loving for a Lifetime (covers)
Site Seeing in digitaal Eindhoven (covers)
The Joy of Sex (covers)

CD-i Music
Secrets Of Tatjana (Covers)

Video-CD Music
Tatjana – Made in Hollywood (Title addition)

DV on CD-i Music
Tatjana’s Double Deal (Title Addition)

CD-i Professional
CD-i Prototype disc – Some technical aspects of CD-i (covers)

Kids
Face Kitchen (Dutch covers)
Max Magic (credits: Calibraco – covers)
Mother Goose – Hidden Pictures (covers)
Paint School 1 (German CD)
Pegasus (covers)
Pyramid Adventure® – Episode 1 (covers)
Routes to Reading (front cover)

Testing Fase
Brain Dead 13 – Testing Fase (CD)

Unreleased
Aliens Interactive (cover)
Battle Chess (cover)
Dead End (cover)
Down in the Dumps (cover)
The Dame was Loaded (cover)
The Lost Vikings (cover)

Demo
Op Jacht naar Vernuft (credits: Calibraco – covers)

A Special Thanks to our contributors Arethius_RGC, Calibraco and Marco Parisio Java!
More is coming… 😉

Quizard on CD-i players!

TAB-Austria, as the name indicate was an Austrian company that created a series of arcade games in the late 90’s.
What is important for us is not the arcade game… It is the fact the games were developed under CD-i format.
These games first appeared on MAME version 0.139 (July 30 2010), as you know MAME is a multiplatform system emulator and the people behind it are jointing all games into one single place.
Quizard 1 (version 1.7), Quizard 2 (version 2.2), Quizard 3 (version 3.2) and Quizard Rainbaw 4 (version 4.1) are some of them, but they are not included into the official CD-i catalogue.

Quizard series are Quiz games up to 2 players, with a limited time to answer different questions categories, on each wrong answer, you will lose 1 live, until you lost the game. The objective is to get the most points as possible.

Quizard 1 and 2 worked almost perfectly on MAME and CD-i Emulator thanks to Harmony, but Quizard 3 and 4 wasn’t working at all.
That is when Team Europe entered in action, a dedicated group of people to decap MCU’s from original games integrated chips, they got originals Quizard MCU’s.

What is a MCU?
It is a chip which has inside a CPU + EPROM. This chip can get protected with a FUSE-BIT. When this bit is set, you can’t read the EPROM part from it. This chips were pretty expensive back in the days and the only way to read the EPROM part, is to decap it. (Open the Chip, cover the EPROM area with UV-opaque and put it under UV-eraser, which will then “delete” the FUSE-BIT. After that you can read the EPROM part, like it was never protected.

What is an EPROM?
It is a chip with data on it, it can not get protected and is pretty easy to read with any programmer.

Decapping MCU’s is the way you are able to get into the middle of it and reach the Eprom to unlock it with UV light, then copy to a brand new MCU. You need to place an UV protection on the Eprom to avoid any damage when erasing the lock
Easy right? No… Not at all… This is a very sensitive mission and I do not recommend any of you to try it at home!!!

So back in 2016, Team Europe received Quizard 1 and Quizard 4. They did what they know best… decapping the MCU to erase the unlock and be able to read it in a Eprommer reader, then copy it to a new Eprom.

Then back in 2017, Team Europe received Quizard 3 MCU and did the same.
In the following pictures you can read on the original MCU “DE132D3”, this means:
Language: German (DE)
Version: 1.32 (132)
Revision: D3 (D3)

In 2018, Team Europe received another version of Quizard 3, the “DE132A1” and did the same again!

Remember, there is a least 8 versions of Quizard 1 and many others from Quizard 2, Quizard 3 and Quizard 4!

Now, let’s talk about the 2dn part of the work:
Turn you CD-i player into an working Arcade Machine…

Team Europe didn’t just managed to unlock and copy new Eproms, they also designed a MCU board that connects to your CD-i player (Input 2) that will inform your system it is allowed to play the game.
The reason of decapping MCU is because the new MCU copies will be placed into the board.
This way, if you want to play Quizard 1.xx, you will need to place MCU Quizard 1 on the board, the same thing for Quizard 2.xx, Quizard 3.xx and Quizard 4.xx.

Retrostuff received a complete MCU board from Team Europe ready to be mounted. He did the work and test it for us!
Check it out!

I am waiting to receive one, I will also do my tests, but no needs to post anything unless there is some news.

With people like that… The future of CD-i is promising!
Congratulations to all!

ASSEMbler Games forums going to close?

This is official from ASSEMbler’s team in this post:
https://assemblergames.com/threads/this-forum-to-close-in-30-days.71032

You can read from the Admin:

Current account status -$2880 ($120 x 24 months)
It cannot continue at such a loss.
Thank you for being companions for 23 years journey.
-ASSEMbler

ASSEMbler Games is the place that get the very first information about Mario Takes America for CD-i!
https://assemblergames.com/threads/mario-takes-america-phillips-cd-i.12062

It is more than just CD-i, this a place that helped people to develop all kind of game’s systems, selling stuff and so much more… A major lost for internet and gaming lovers! ;(

It is in fact a little bit stranger for a forum to be so expensive… $120 each months…?
I do believe there is lower prices for the objective of the forums.

If nobody buy the forum or if no money is found to pay the bills, then the last breath will be Saterday 29th of 2019…

CD-izi Authoring Tool Open-Source Project

This is maybe the most ambitious Open-Source Project of all time for CD-i… The most important of all…
If we manage to accomplish CD-izi authoring tool project, we will be able to bring new programmers to develop new homebrew CD-i titles!
The objective is to give to any interested developer the opportunity to use it as simplest as possible.

Specifications required:
– Windows 7/8/10 compatible.
– Ready assets (drag & drop).
– Much easier than Balboa libraries.
– No professional CD-i player needed.
– Easy layout and intuitive functions.
– Output directly testable on a CD-i emulator (no disc burning needed).
– Updatable software (no new download required).

To participate on this project, use the Official Forum Section and leave there all your ideas and thoughts. You can also send e-mails for a more private contact.
The page will be updated with all the new contributions that we think CD-izi will need.

A World of possibilities!

After more than 2 months after the opening of The World of CD-i, visitors and members got lot of things to discover.
It is now time to show you what a registered user can really do by interacting directly to the site!

Most of our users have a new role in the site, they are contributors, that means they can now add information to the site.
If you are a contributor, then you can add incomplete information from existing title file or add new titles not registered yet, add your own covers scans, screenshots, videos, etc…

The criteria to get this status is defined by the activity of the user (forum posts, comments, visits frequency) and the level of trust between him and The World of CD-i.
You will receive an email to inform that your status level have been improved from subscriber to contributor.
Please verify your spam box.

Learn how to do contribute!

CD-i goodies for all tastes!

TEEPUBLIC is based in New York (USA) and it’s the world’s largest marketplace for independent creators to sell their work on the highest-quality merchandise.
An independent artist is paid with each purchase made on TeePublic. Since 2013, independent artists on TeePublic have earned around the globe.
They got the idea to sell products with Philips CD-i logo and I really love this idea!
You can choose about 26 different T-shirts colours, or just buy other goodies like:
Coffe Mug, Travvel Mug, Hardcover Handbook, Spiral Notebook, Tote, Pillow, Phone Case, Lapetop Case, Baseball T-Shirt, Long Sleeve T-Shirt, Crewneck Sweatshirt, Tank Top, Hoodie and finally there own homemade sticker logo design!

Get your goodie right now for a good cause!

Thank you “CD-i Guy” @Philips_CDi from Twitter for this info!

New Team members @ The World of CD-i

At The World of CD-i, each team member knows exactly what to do.
We are in constant contact each other, to define new projects and areas to work on.
That is why we proudly announce 2 new official team members for his respective target.

CD-i Fan, the Emulator creator.
He will exclusively work on the Title Development section, under the Open-Source project, and of course continue with BurnCycle (emulator tester) to make a better experience of his Emulator.

Alan_CDiZone the biggest CD-i lover I ever know!
He will provide some experience of his incredibly huge collection and other material to the site database.
He is the man behind the now sadly closed Philips CD-i Zone Facebook page. He is a very busy man, but he will for sure answer you as soon as possible.

Title Development:
CD-i Fan
English, Nederlands
cdifan@theworldofcdi.com

Titles Information:
Alan_CDiZone
English
alan_cdizone@theworldofcdi.com

Philips CD-i Backup Guide

We proudly upload our famous Philips CD-i Backup Guide under PDF format! 16 pages full of information in a “Do it Yourself” way.
Written by Blurb69 back in 2004, it is now updated to version 3.0.
The objective of the guide was and still is, to avoid using your original titles. We all know the difficulty to find CD-i titles due to high prices and the rarity of some of them. Using a copy of your own discs, you will protect your personal collection!

What’s new on version 3.0?
– Updated new website logo.
– Updated website links.
– Updated all freeware and shareware download links.
– Updated all tests under windows 7 with new screenshots.
– Added “What’s new?”.
– Translation of the Guide to French.

The French version was asked by so many people that it was impossible not to do it for them.

Download Now!
– English version
– French version