Amiga CD32 – 30 Years Old (1993-2023)

Happy Birthday to the CD32 – which celebrates its 30th Birthday Today! (17 Sep 1993)

I personally never bought a CD32, because it is in reality just an Amiga 1200 which was converted into a CD32, and it had a modified Kickstart 3.1 with CD32 Firmware added on, as well as a pretty decent musical CD32 Boot Logo, instead of the A1200 Insert Disk Screen

The CD32 was AGA compatible, and has 2MB of Amiga Chip Ram, along with a 1KB EEPROM Memory for the Save Games Feature, as well as the main CD-ROM drive which was Double-Speed (300KB/s)

It had most of the expansion ports which can be found on the A1200, from the standard Mouse/Gamepad ports, Serial Port and RCA Composite Video Out to connect it to a TV

Commodore wanted to release the CD32 in America, but sadly due to a deadline to pay Cad Track in the USA for their patent, a Judge ordered an injunction against Commodore preventing them from importing stock into the United States, this, combined with other problems at the time, did not help Commodore and was one of the reasons why Commodore had no option at this point but to declare bankruptcy

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My thoughts about the CD32:

Some Games were released for it in its short 8 month(ish) lifespan, although most were just Disk-Based Games converted to run on the CD32, such as Bubba’N’Stix and Fire and Ice which had some Music changes on the CD32 Version, There were a few Exclusives Games released for it, one of them was called Lunar-C, which I am reviewing this month

I have a feeling if the Judge had not ordered payment and prevented them shipping units to the USA (which could have allowed them to SELL the units, therefore making plenty of money to settle with Cad track, potentially allowing them to continue)

This is really one of the many reasons why, to this day, I still have a love/hate relationship with the CD32

I love it for the idea of CD-based Games, the actual design and look of the unit is Great, and although I am not a huge fan of the Joypad Design what shipped with it, It was at least more usable and certainly had a better design, compared to that UGLY massive SEGA Dreamcast Controller!!

I hate it because of CAD Track, and also because it cost Commodore dearly and was one of many reasons (not the only reason) why Commodore failed and had to declare backruptcy

Yes I know can speculate as much as I like, The way things went were dire and dismal for Commodore and I only wish things could have been different, if the Judge had ruled differently, perhaps allowing them to import the CD32, but that so much percentage of the profits from the CD32 Sales would be payable to CAD Track, then maybe, just maybe, Commodore could have survived and prospered

Another annoyance, which is still causing major problems to this very day, is the rights to the Amiga are split so many ways, and many companies still have a few hands in the “Amiga Pie” so to speak, which is a nightmare quite frankly

What are your Comments on the CD32, Please ket me know below

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Find out more about the Amiga CD32 on Wikipedia

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