The electronic point-of-sale machine has gone through a huge number of different iterations, design philosophies and technological advances, from the early bespoke EPOS tills used by Mcdonalds to the modern cloud-based systems that are commonplace today.

However, among the standardised machines such as the OPOS and JavaPOS tills, several oddities were adapted from other technological advances into the retail space.

By far the weirdest of these is the Philips CD-i, a somewhat-infamous system that stumbled into its calling as a relatively affordable multimedia kiosk and EPOS machine.

The CD-i originally started development in 1984, just two years after Philips and Sony had developed the compact disc together. The intention was to create a standard for what would eventually become known as multimedia, much in the same way the Red Book standard was used for music.

It would be delayed several times before finally releasing in 1990, with a somewhat confused marketing campaign.

It was intended to be an interactive home entertainment system that could play music, video CDs and a variety of educational and entertainment software, but quickly was forced to sell itself as a video game console to try and sell the hugely expensive system.

This did not work because outside of its ability to play video during a time when that was not a standard feature, the CD-i was quite underpowered for a games console, and its library of games included some truly bizarre adaptations of game shows and four infamous games featuring Nintendo characters.

Despite this relative lack of success, the CD-i was produced for eight years, in part because it had found a niche as a highly effective point-of-sale system, as well as an interactive kiosk that could be used to play videos and music in electronics stores.

Its asking price of $1000 was far too much for a games console during a time when even the most expensive system was $700 and most were closer to $200, but that made it a very affordable price for an interactive kiosk, especially during a time before OPOS had standardised the market.

Whilst the CD-i has remained a rather infamous footnote in entertainment history, its professional legacy is far more assured.