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Apple Interactive Television Box

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Prototype of the Apple set-top box

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

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 a leaked instruction manual, suggests the set-top box project was very near completion before being canceled.

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.

Hardware details

Back side of the unit

The Apple Set-Top Box is based upon the Macintosh Centric 610/Power Macintosh 6100. Since the box was never marketed, no official technical specifications have been released by Apple. The following describes a typical unit:

  • A/V ports include composite video on an RCA jack with two additional RCA jacks for stereo sound, an S-Video port, two RF coaxial cable jacks, and two SCART jacks.
  • Mac-like ports including a Macintosh serial port, an RJ-45 ethernet port, and a SCSI port.
  • The front of the unit has an Apple logo and an infrared receiver, apparently for interface via the remote control.
  • The unit contains a 68LC040 CPU, and 4 megabytes of built in RAM, but no hard drive. Some prototypes have a PowerPC 601 CPU.
  • An internal expansion slot of a type not found on other Apple products. There is speculation that this may be based on Apple's PDS expansion slot.

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.

See also

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