Arabian CDi player and titles
Turns out that we can add a whole new part of the World to the list of places where CDi got some action back in the day:
From Ebay:
It arrived intact, and includes the remote. There's an odd power prong for which I'll need an adapter before testing it.
Now, I made sure to do some research on this, but all I found was the following:
http://www.aast.edu/en/centers/aast_centers/contenttemp.php?page_id=41000004
Here's the relevant info:
"Developing 103 educational courses on CD-ROM and CD-I discs revised and authorized by the Ministry of Education of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (grades 1 to 12) in cooperation with Knowlogy International."
So for Arabian CDi software, there could be over 100 titles, none of which have anything online about them.
Does anyone here know anything further on these Knowlogy players and titles?
And in case anyone is interested, yes, I am willing to sell or trade the player for CDis that I don't yet own.
Great work Blazers! What a find!
I knew about CD-i being in Arabia market, but never saw titles.
I will make my research about it.
Thank you very much for sharing this with us!
Great find!
What kind of power plug does it have?
If it is the same player as the DVS VE-200, then it has a multi-region power supply and only needs a simple adapter.
Make sure to dump the ROM, so we can compare it with the DVS/LG ROM.
Here is my 1st Arabic disc find.
It is in fact related with the school topic Blazers talk on the top of this post.
It says:
General Agent: Saudi Knowledge Company, Abanami Commercial Center, Salah El Din Al Ayoubi Road.
6th Grade of Primary School
Ministry of Acquaintance
Knowlogy - Knowledge
GP61
year 1997
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Here's two pictures of the actual power lead prongs. I'm not familiar with this type. What is it and what would be a good adapter to use?
Secondly, how would somebody go about dumping the system ROM itself, and copying off any save files that might happen to be on the player?
That Arabian disc looks really cool! Could there really be over a 100 like it?
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Thanks for the info. I was also checking the actual listed specs on the unit itself.
Now, where can I get a good, trustworthy adapter that I can use to test this?
I'm happy to get the system ROM dumped, if I only knew how. Is there anyone in the US that can do this?
Yes, this is an Europlug. Luckily, this CD-i player is compatible with 50/60 Hz and 110-230 V (no voltage conversion required), so just get a cheap adapter for European plugs.
Dumping the ROM is easy; you'll need a null-modem cable and CD-i Link. For this player you don't even have to build a cable because it has a standard 25-pin RS232 port. Here's how to connect it to a modern PC and dump the ROM: https://retrostuff.org/2020/04/03/back-up-and-restore-nvram-data-with-cd-i-link/
Just as a heads-up for those interested, the footage from the one known Knowlogy disc is now online.
Hell yes, I am really interested!