Sadly, many of our CD-i players no longer have a working timekeeper. Some people have managed to fix this issue with skill and ingenuity (here, here and here), but for those people who are happy to keep their player as it is, without being able to save high scores, please note that certain titles that I’ve identified recently require you to set the time 🙂
I usually play Earth Command at Christmas! 2022 was the first year that my 740 player no longer had a working battery. For some reason, Earth Command wouldn’t play – I just had a blank screen. I realised that the game monitors how long you’re in post as Commander, and displays the date at the top of the screen – and this relates to the timekeeper! So you must set the time before loading the CD-i!!
But without a doubt, the most bizarre aspect relating to the timekeeper is that of trying to play Interactive Video Charts 1995. I first discovered these titles back in the early/mid 2000’s but for some strange reason, no 1995 discs would play on any of my machines – apart from the FW380i. Why? 1994, 1996 and 1997 discs all played fine! In the last month or so, I realised that, to play these 1995 titles, the clock must be set to the year 1995 🙂 So, if the timekeeper is still working, the CD-is won’t play! And if the time is not set, or is set to 2023, they also won’t work. Go back in time to 1995 though and, hey presto, you’ll be able to enjoy fantastic music videos from the ‘club classics’ era 😉
If there are any other CD-i titles that you know of that require setting the clock, please do let us know!
I only stumbled across it by chance because I first suspected a defective laser – see https://retrostuff.org/2018/12/13/cd-i-earth-command-start-problems . The trick is to set the dead clock forward by one year or one minute in the settings, then it will run again. But this only works in the time before the player blocks with the error message “memory full”.
Other titles that have required certain date settings in the past are the BGM audio discs, which have an internal expiration date.
Thank-you very much indeed for your comment @Rosewood – much appreciated 🙂
I believe A Great Day at the Races uses the internal clock as well. It uses the set date as a starting point for the races and I’ve had it come up with gibberish in the game by not setting the clock. Still playable though and strangely enough when I tried it at a later date, it did work, just started in the 1300s or something.
Thank-you for this Seb, much appreciated – I remember this happening to me over Christmas but I didn’t realise at the time that it was due to the timekeeper issue!!! I lost all of my money too – didn’t win on ONE race 🙁
Earth Command, my favourite CD-i game!
Thank you Alan!
Excellent Omegalfa 🙂 But I have to ask… have you ever completed it? The most I’ve spent in the job is 3 years, before being sacked. So, so difficult!!
Never… Almost…
I played 6 hours in a raw, everything was going fine, all “green” everywhere, but it was 4am and my mother told me to go to bed!!! 🙁
Hahaha oh no that’s terrible!!! But massive congrats on getting that far. I’ve not even come close to that!! But I’ll still keep trying.
It’s a game quite far ahead of it’s time isn’t it?