Author Archives: omegalfa

1st Basque Country CD-i Tournament


A few weeks ago I have been contacted by Egoitz Gonzalez, a Spanish CD-i enthusiast.
He is from Bilbao city, in the Basque Country (north Est of Spain) and got this crazy idea to make a tournament of CD-i games.
He and some friends have decided to buy a CD-i player with some titles just to organize this event. Wonderful!

So, if you are from Spain and want to participate in the 1st Basque CD-i Country Tournament, don’t miss it!
Saturday, 11th of February 2023 at Bilbao (Spain) will take place at “Bar Azteka” (Calle Fika 50), 06.00PM

4 CD-i games will be rolling:
– Ms Pac-Man (Arcade Classics)
– Video Speedway
– Mystic Midway
– Escape from CyberCity

This is a very good initiative and hope we can see more of this in the future all around the World! Congratulations!
We can’t wait to see pictures!

This is an awesome idea, I have discussed the subject for several days with Egoitz and another idea came to my mind…
At The World of CD-i, we will create a High Score section, based on this tournament idea.
“Can you explain it better, Omegalfa?”
That is a good question folks, of course I can 😉
Each month, a CD-i game will be chosen, during limited days you will play it and try to reach your highest score, then you just need to send a picture of the High Score screen from your TV.
We will publish a list with the TOP 5 Hall of Fame of this specific game with your username and country.
Points will be attributed and a ranking will be created. A list of the TOP 5 usernames and countries will be set for each year.
Simple right?
Get ready… it’s coming…


Great Italian streams you must watch!

Our good friend Marco Parisio, got my attention when he sent to me a personal message a few months ago about something big that was going to happen.
In fact, Igorstellar and Magnum CD-i, two YouTubers from Italy, made 4 live streams about the Philips CD-i in Italian language with more than 2 hours long each.
The language might be a barrier for some of you but give it a try.  😎
Be sure you will watch it as they are very well presented, and Magnum CD-i’s knowledge is pretty good.
Congratulations guys, keep up the good work!

1st video: The CD-i History

2nd video: The CD-i Hardware

3rd video: The CD-i Games (part 1)

4th video: The CD-i Games (part 2)


Fútbol – Football Spanish version


Every day, I use to search on the web about CD-i related things. During one of them, I found something I didn’t know it existed… the Spanish version of the multimedia title Football.
This title got several versions: Belgium/French, English and Dutch (Voetbal) and now this Spanish one (Fútbol).
I found it on a Spanish 2nd hand selling site and once again, with the help of Pablo, I have now one more Spanish title in my collection.

I haven’t tried it yet, due to the very little time I have to be in front of my CD-i player and the website lately.
Hoping to be back soon, until then, enjoy your CD-i titles!


CD-i 30 Years Exhibition!

The Philips CD-i is celebrating his 30 years of lunch in Europe!
To mark the day, the Home Computer Museum in Helmond (The Netherlands) has prepared an event, a BIG one!
Jorg Kennis, who was behind the ICDIA website a few years ago, loaned his complete CD-i collection to this museum, including more than 1500 titles, accessories and almost all different CD-i players. Other people from all around the world also offered other CD-i material. As far as I know, this is the only place on earth where you can visit the largest CD-i collection, and I know you don’t want to miss it!
The official exhibit opening!

Sunday, 22th of May 2022
11:00 am
The Home Computer Museum
The Netherlands

You will be able to play some titles, talk to ex CD-i developers from The Vision Factory company (The Apprentice, Lucky Luke, etc…), Philips employees and other incredible surprises you just can’t imagine…
Come and meet amazing people!
You can buy your ticket right here!


Bringing back Internet to CD-i

Frankie0815 from the Philips CD-i Discord is definitely not the 1st person trying to connect his CD-i player to internet, but he is for sure the one who is dedicating a maximum of efforts to reach his goal.
He is using original modems sold by Philips to get a connection. Of course, if you are one of the people who also tried it, you have for sure seen this screen:

Along his quest many people from the Interactive Community started helping him with ideas and tests.
To be able to get internet from the new generation connections, Hipsofjw told him to use a DreamPi, (a Raspberry Pi created by Kazade used to connect a SEGA’s Dreamcast, a Saturn and even a Nintendo’s GameCube online) to convert the old modem connection into a high speed internet for Ethernet or Wifi.

A modem will always be needed so he first used a US ROBOTICS 14400 (from the original CD-Online UK kit) but got that error “The Modem can not detect a dialtone, check the connections”, using several Dream Pi versions like 1.2, 1.5 and 1.7 (latest one) keeping the same settings as for the Dreamcast.
A CD-Online disc is also needed to get a connection, he first tried CD-Online Disc 02
Christa Lee joined forces with some tests from her side, trying to guide him to new possibilities. Then TwBurn (from the USB to CD-i device), Maartje (from the Bluetooth to CD-i device), Rosewood (from Retrostuff.org), cdifan (from CD-i Emulator & The World of CD-i), Seph (SephDB – itch.io) and kivan helped with some tips to get a dial connection.

Many problems had to be solved like making cables to connect the modem to the CD-i player (2 types of cable was used depending of the modem), use a connection under a SLIP or a PPP, try different DreamPi settings, tests with other CD-Online discs, a 14400 or a 33600 baud modem… all to try to get the modem recognised.

Frankie0815 then got a new LVI (Line Voltage Inducer) and a new version of DreamPi, he tried again and got something new:

This time the problem is a “Connection timed out” error, that means the modem is now recognised. Much better!
Later he confirmed the compatibility between a 14400 or a 33600 baud modem.

Still, no successful connection, so he went back to basic, plugging the modem to his PC using a USB to RS232 adapter, using a puTTY terminal program he sent AT commands to the modem. Turned the modem speaker ON and loud to listen to the dialtone. Unfortunately, nothing were listened.
He then decided to increase the LVI voltage from 18V to 20V to see if something changed… and… he got a dialtone loud and clear, the modem dials and even gets a connect from DreamPi. If you can do it on a PC, you also can do it on a CD-i!

He tried the CD-Online Disc 97-10, and got an handshake for a few seconds but lost connection right after.
The fact a login/account was needed back then from a specific site is also an issue that must be solved.
Look at the CD-online and Web-i websites (from Wayback Machine):

www.cd-online.com
www.cd-online.co.uk
www.cd-online.nl
www.cd-online.be
www.web-i.com

Another modem has been tested, the official one, included in the Internet Kit, a Philips branded 14400 baud.

Also several internet discs have been used, because different protocols were used from disc to disc (SLIP, PPP or even SLIP and PPP).

CD-Online Disc 01, from the internet kit was specifically for Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and UK.
In CD-Online Issue 02 and later discs you could select your country from the main menu.

About what he did, Frankie0815 says:

I have tested 3 modems: U.S. Robotics Sportster 14.400, which was distributed with the UK CD-Online set, Sportster 33.600 which I got, before I could get the 14.400, and the complete Netherlands Set Internetten op je T.V. with the Philips 144 modem.
I tested several versions of the CD-online Software, Netherlands and UK. I have 2 different modem cables, one is self made, the other from the Holland set.
Before testing with the CD-i, I built the DreamPi, and made 2 different Line Voltage inducer. With this setup, and a PC terminal (PuTTY) I dialled my first connections, to verify, that the DreamPi and Line Voltage Inducers are working properly.

That was pretty hard, as it turned out, that the Voltage of the LVI was very important and different for each modem. The LVI is needed for the modem, to recognise the Dialtone, which is produced by the DreamPi.
This was the best effort I could get. After a few seconds, modem lost connection due to missing CD-Online servers. There is a login procedure, where your account was checked. But the server isn’t not there anymore.

The connection with PPP through the DreamPi setup is working well. I made a dial-up connection to the Internet with PC, DreamPi and modem. Slow, but working. So the setup is working.

For now it’s been as far as he’s gotten so far…
We all should thank him for all the efforts he made.

It is a question of time before someone finally make it possible. Soon or later the CD-i will be connected again to the internet, of course, the actual websites are to much advanced for what the CD-i can read. A dedicated website will need to be created, with basic html coding. A different approach may also be needed to reach a connection.
We hope more people will jump into this adventure!

Why not play RAM Raid online again?
It’s a question of time…