One of the most interesting aspects of the CDTV was the fact that it was based on the standard Amiga chipset and 68000 CPU. In fact, with the addition of a keyboard, infrared mouse, and external disk drive, the unit acts just like an Amiga 500 with a built in CD-ROM. It's ROM contains Kickstart 1.3, two additional EPROMs providing the CD functionality. These EPROMs are incompatible with Kickstart 2.0 and above but developers received updated versions that would work with newer Kickstarts without losing the use of the CD-ROM. These updated chips were never released. The base unit has 1meg of RAM. Along the rear of the unit are two option spaces, one for the video output and one for a Genlock or other peripheral made for the unit. The normal video option card had outputs for composite and S-video, as well as a RF modulator output for NTSC to a TV. Above this are standard Amiga connections for parallel, serial, dual RCA audio jacks, RGB and external floppy ports, as well as MIDI in and out and CDTV specific keyboard and mouse/joystick ports. The keyboard for the CDTV is identical to that of the Amiga 4000 with the exception that it is black in color and it was produced prior to the introduction of the A4000. The CDTV's CD-ROM was a single speed drive, proprietary in nature and utilized standard Sony-style disc caddies. The CDTV is the only Amiga to ship with built-in MIDI capabilities.
The CDTV keyboard, wired mouse, and CD 1411 disk drive were all part of the Professinal Pack that was included as an optional extra with some CDTV's. The 1411 disk drive is identical to the Amiga 1011 drive but is black in color to match the CDTV. Other items available for the CDTV include the CD1300 genlock, the CD1321 SCART video adapater, an external SCSI hard disk, and a SCSI controller that used the single open expansion slot in the rear of the CDTV. There were many 3rd part upgrades as well and Commodore even had plans for a LAN adapter, though it's unknown if it even reached the prototype stage. Commodore also produced a black version of the 1084 monitor for it.
On April 29, 1994 Commodore International shut it's doors. Early in 1995, German PC-manufacturer ESCOM bought Commodore, though they themselves would go into receivership the next year.