The CDTV was released in
1990 and was one of the first attempts to get a
computer into the same sort of
niche as the
audio system or
VCR. The
name, of course, had nothing to do with it being a
CD player that plugged into your
television - this was
Commodore Dynamic Total Vision. Effectively an
Amiga 500 with a
CD drive and no
keyboard in a nice
black box, the CDTV fit in perfectly with a
stack of audio and video stuff. Sadly it was also horribly
overpriced and
software support was terrible. Commodore initially refused to let it be associated with the
Amiga at all, and
shops were obliged to have CDTV stuff a certain
distance away from Amiga hardware and software. After the release
flopped, it was rebranded as part of the Amiga range. Sales didn't improve much. Effectively dead by 1992 and really dead by 1993 (with the launch of the
CD32), nobody missed it much.
With some hackery, a hard drive can be added and the CPU upgraded to something with an MMU. At this point it potentially becomes something nice to install Linux or NetBSD M68k on.