Apple Interactive Television Box - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Not to be confused with Apple TV.

The Apple Interactive Television Box was a set-top box

Set-top box

A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...

developed by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in partnership with a number of global telecommunications firms, including British Telecom and Belgacom

Belgacom

The Belgacom Group is the largest telecommunications company in Belgium, headquartered in Brussels. Belgacom Group is primarily state owned, with the Belgian state holding 53.3% + 1 share...

amongst others. Prototypes of the unit were tested in parts of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

in 1994-1995, 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

Fast forward

To fast-forward means to move forward through a recording at a speed faster than that at which it would usually be played. The recordings are usually audio, video, or computer data...

, rewind and so on. In this regard it is similar to a modern satellite receiver

Receiver (radio)

A radio receiver converts signals from a radio antenna to a usable form. It uses electronic filters to separate a wanted radio frequency signal from all other signals, the electronic amplifier increases the level suitable for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through...

or TiVo

TiVo

TiVo is a digital video recorder developed and marketed by TiVo, Inc. and introduced in 1999. TiVo provides an on-screen guide of scheduled broadcast programming television programs, whose features include "Season Pass" schedules which record every new episode of a series, and "WishList"...

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

The Apple Set-Top Box is based upon the Macintosh Quadra 605

Macintosh Quadra 605

The Quadra 605 is an entry level 68040 microprocessor-based Apple Macintosh personal computer code-named "Aladdin" or "Primus" which was released on October 21, 1993 as part of the Quadra series and discontinued on October 16, 1994...

/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:

Status light
- Red (steady): main power is switched on; the Apple Interactive TV Box is undergoing self-test checks
- Yellow: main power is switched on, but the Apple Interactive TV Box is not currently in use
- Green: the Apple Interactive TV Box is on and in use
- Red (flashing): the Apple Interactive TV Box is not working correctly
Power: Universal power supply:
- From 90 volts to 240 volts
- From 50 hertz to 60 hertz
Weight
- 7 lbs. (2.6 kg)
Dimensions
- 15.6 in. wide x 11.4 in. deep x 2.2 in. high (395 mm x 290 mm x 56 mm)
Operating temperatures: Temperature is given in Celsius (C) and Fahrenheit (F).
- 10 °C to 40 °C (50 °F to 104 °F)
Storage temperatures
- –40 °C to 47 °C (–40 °F to 116 °F)
TV Standards for RF Ports
- If RF ports have aerial connectors: PAL
- If RF ports have F connectors: NTSC
Video decompression standard
- MPEG-2 Transport containing ISO11172 (MPEG-1) bit streams
Input and output ports
- INPUT: Apple Desktop Bus (ADB)
- SCART: two 21-pin EURO-SCART
- RF IN and RF OUT: 75 ohms; either PAL aerial connectors tuned to channels 32–40 or NTSC F-connectors tuned to channel 3 or 4
- Network: RJ-45 connector for either E1 data stream on PAL devices or T1 data stream on NTSC devices
- Serial: requires Apple System/Peripheral 8 Cable
- S-Video: Separate Video output
- Video: RCA jack, composite video output
- Audio: RCA jacks, left and right stereo output
- SCSI: HDI-30

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. Therefor a Television Box had to establish a network connection successfully in order to finish the boot process.

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 MPEG 2 decoding components for the "QuickTime Player" software.

Hardware details

Software details

External links

See also