HARDWARE REVIEW   

                             A-570 CD-ROM DRIVE


                              by Phil Campbell


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   Let's not beat around the bush. After all, in Megadisc you're allowed to
  be brutally honest. So I'll come out and say it... Commodore's CDTV has
  been an absolute fizzer. Well, almost. A handful of technophiles rushed
  out and bought one as soon as they hit the streets. Now they're waiting
  for some decent software... ooops... I mean "titles." (Please note, the
  CDTV philosophy excludes the use of technical jargon like "software"!)

   Now, however, I'm convinced things are about to change. I've just been
  playing with one of the first A570 CD-ROM drives to arrive in Australia.
  And I'm impressed. In simple terms, it's a stripped down CDTV. Simply
  plug it into a standard Amiga 500, and you're ready to go.

   The unit is compact, a low-line cream coloured affair that slots into the
  Amiga's side expansion port. My Amiga has discoloured a little with age,
  so the colours don't quite match - but the decorative slots along the top
  of both units co-ordinate perfectly. The drive is a little wider than the
  A-590 Hard Drive, though not much bulkier. The front panel is vertical,
  and doesn't imitate the raked effect of the keyboard, but the overall
  effect is neat. On the front panel you'll find a headphone socket, a
  volume control knob, and the CD slot. Like the CDTV - and most CD-ROM
  drives - a disk caddy is provided.

   There are four audio sockets on the back of the unit. Standard Amiga
  sound feeds into one pair of RCA sockets. This signal is then mixed with
  the CD-Audio, matching the specifications of the original CDTV - in other
  words, sound effects from the Amiga will blend perfectly with music and
  voice tracks from the compact disc.

   An external power supply is provided. It looks exactly like the standard
  A-500 cream coloured brick, and has a power switch on the front.
  Obviously, both units must be powered up, so you'll have an extra switch to
  flick before you can get going.

   Otherwise, getting started is simple.  If there's a bootable disk in your
  internal floppy drive when you switch on, it's Amiga business as usual.
  Your system will recognise the CD unit as an extra drive with around 650
  megabytes of read-only storage. The system comes with a disk containing
  every program in Fred Fish's famous public domain software collection.
  It blends seamlessly into the Amiga's Workbench operating system - you
  can access any program from the original 490 "Fish disks" with three or
  four clicks on your mouse.

   Leave out the boot disk, though, and the system will automatically move
  into CDTV mode, complete with the always impressive startup screen
  featuring the sparkly CD and rotating logo. Push in a CDTV software title
  in the caddy, and off you go - everything works exactly like a fully
  fledged CDTV machine.

   To check out the unit's compatibility, I ran THE HEROIC AGE OF SPACE
  FLIGHT, the first CDTV title to feature Commodore's CD-XL data compression
  format to produce 10 frame per second full motion video. Believe it or
  not, the disc features a 50 minute movie - NASA... THE 25TH YEAR - as
  well as piles of interesting facts and figures. It worked beautifully.

   My kids tried the CDTV version of LEMMINGS, with no apparent problems. In
  fact, playing with the mouse is easier than using the original infra-red
  remote controller. (For some reason the PLANETSIDE demo wouldn't work...
  wonder why?)

   In some cases, operating the programs gets a bit awkward - if the software
  was designed to run only with the remote control "joypad", then mouse or
  joystick movements may not be quite what you're expecting. In BARNEY BEAR
  GOES TO SCHOOL, for example, selecting options with the mouse was a bit of
  a hit and miss affair. And in FALCON, a superb flight simulator that
  originated on the Amiga, it seems that mouse control is the only option -
  I'd rather use the joystick.

   My only other complaint is that there's no pass-through connection for a
  hard drive. If your current hard disk doesn't have one, then you've got
  real problems - of course, you can always do the plug-and-unplug-shufffle
  every time you want to swap over, but I wouldn't recommend it. The drive
  does feature a built in SCSI interface, which means you can plug in all
  sorts of other hard drives, tape drives and stuff, but that's small comfort
  if you've just invested in an A590 hard drive.

   One final point. You'll need one megabyte of chip ram to run the unit -
  if you've got an ancient A500 without a "Fat Agnus" chip, then you're out
  of luck.

   These, however, are minor quibbles. Because the humble looking A-570
  drive is about to launch a revolution. The CDTV has always had the
  potential to turn the world of entertainment and educational software on
  its ear. So far, the potential hasn't been fulfilled. But now it will be.
  The A-570 promises to be extremely affordable - around $599, which to my
  mind is the ideal price-point. At that price, I'm willing to predict that
  one day, there'll be an A-570 squatting beside every Amiga 500 in the
  world.  And that means there'll be a hurricane of software with full motion
  video, stereo sound, and swags of space for data storage. Good one,
  Commodore!


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