Apple Interactive Television Box
The Apple Interactive Television Box was a set-top box developed by Apple Computer in partnership with British Telecom. Prototypes of the unit were tested in parts of the United States and Europe in 1995, but the product was canceled shortly thereafter, before ever being mass produced or marketed.
Today, the unit is a favorite among Apple collectors, and is occasionally offered for sale second-hand. Since the unit apparently requires a connection to a proprietary data service in order to function, the units existing today do not boot.
Hardware details
Since the box was never marketed, no official technical specifications were ever publicly 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 jack, two RF coaxial cable jacks, and two SCART jacks (a European standard combining video and sound)
- Mac-like ports including an Macintosh serial port, an RJ-45 ethernet jack, and a SCSI jack.
- The front of the unit has an Apple logo and an infrared receiver, apparently for interface via remote control.
- The unit contains a 68LC040 CPU, and 4MB of built in RAM, with no hard drive.