by Ben Phister, CATS


In the coming months Commodore plans to begin delivery of the A570
drive.  This CD-ROM peripheral for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 500 Plus
should rapidly expand the installed base of CDTV-compatible players.
With over 3 million Amigas sold worldwide, the potential for the A570
is enormous.

The A570 presents exciting opportunities for CDTV developers.  It also
presents a certain number of challenges.  Great efforts have been made
to ensure compatibility of titles for both platforms.  However, there
are numerous differences between the CDTV and the A570: keyboard plus
mouse vs. remote control, TV sets in a living room vs. RGB monitors on
a desktop, Kickstart 2.04 vs. Kickstart 1.3, etc.

With the availability of the optional keyboard for CDTV players, many
users now attach a keyboard to their CDTV.  Other users have attached
CD-ROM peripherals to their Amiga 2000 or A3000 computers, and need
keyboard support from titles.

To ensure strong sales of your title on all the systems capable of
playing CDTV discs, your title should take advantage of the new
features of the A570, yet remain easy-to-use on the CDTV player.  This
article discusses the differences between the two systems, and presents
extensions to the CDTV User Interface Guidelines to allow titles to run
on both platforms.

 Physical Differences 
 Operating System Issues 
 Emulating the Remote Controller 
 Screen Design Issues 
 Three Levels of Support for the A570 
 Conclusion