Apple Interactive Television Box

Not to be confused with Apple TV.
Prototype of the Apple set-top box

The Apple Interactive Television Box is a set-top box developed by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in partnership with a number of global telecommunications firms, including British Telecom and Belgacom amongst others. Prototypes of the unit were tested in parts of the United States and Europe in 1994-1995, but the product was cancelled shortly thereafter, and was never mass-produced or marketed.[1]

The set-top box was designed as an interface between a consumer and an interactive television service. The unit's remote control would allow a user to choose what content would be shown on a connected television, as well as to provide functions of fast forward, rewind and so on. In this regard it is similar to a modern satellite receiver or TiVo unit. Unlike the TiVo, the STB would only pass along the user's choices to a central content server instead of issuing content itself. There were also plans for game shows, educational material for children and other forms of content made possible by the interactive qualities of the device.

Today, the unit is a favorite among Apple collectors, and is occasionally offered for sale second-hand. Examples range from very early conceptual prototypes to production-quality machines. These near-completion units lack the unfinished feel of the earlier set-top boxes: the cases fit together well, the internal components often lacked prototype indicators, and some units even have FCC approval stickers (typically one of the last additions before a product is marketed). This, along with an instruction manual on Apple's support website, suggests the set-top box project was very near completion before being cancelled.

Hardware details

Back side of the unit

The Apple Set-Top Box is based upon the Macintosh Quadra 605/LC475. Since the box was never marketed, no official technical specifications have been released by Apple. However, the following information was found in the online manual documentation:

Apple intended to offer the set-top box with a matching black ADB mouse, keyboard, Apple 300e CD-ROM drive, StyleWriter printer and one of several styles of remote controls.

A few hundred to a few thousand units were in actual use at Disneyland California hotels and provided in room shopping and park navigation. A few units have been unearthed containing SCSI hard drives that had some of this information contained within the box. It is surmised that other content was drawn from a network to complement some of the set top box interactivity.

Since the machine was designed to be part of a subscription data service, the remaining units are mostly inoperable. The set-top box ROM contains only what is required to continue booting from an external hard drive or from its Ethernet connection. What's more, many of the prototypes do not appear to even attempt to boot. This is likely dependent on changes in the ROM. The ROM itself contained parts of a downsized Mac OS 7.1 enabling the Television Box to establish a network connection to the media servers provided by "nCube Systems". These servers also provided the parts of the OS not implemented in ROM of the Television Box. Therefore a Television Box had to establish a network connection successfully in order to finish the boot process. There have been cases of users entering in a command key combination, to get the Set Top Box to boot off of a pre-installed OS 7.1 on an external SCSI hard drive, using a PowerBook SCSI adapter (NOT a SCSI Disk Mode-enabled adapter, but one just for external hard drives).

Software details

The STB contained parts of a regular North American Mac OS 7.1.1 containing the "Finder", several "Sockets" for network connection protocols and customized MPEG1 decoding components for the "QuickTime Player" software.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Apple Interactive Television Box". Shrine Of Apple. September 15, 2011. Retrieved October 11, 2012.

External links