Apple Interactive TV Box

[snuci]

I got a couple of items today to0.  My Apple Interactive TV set top box came hat I had purchased from eBay along with a Mits Altair 8800a.  Guess which one I opened first?  The one that could have an exploding battery in it

I hooked it up and got a solid red light and nothing else.  It didn't even look like it hinted at green.  I connected it to composite and RF and saw nothing.  I did recently buy a SCSI cable for it so once I install System 7.1 on a SCSI hard drive, I'll see if it tries to boot.

For kicks, I tried a Mac TV remote and nothing happened.  I must say the finish on the set top boxes are awesomely rough and durable.  That surface should have been how the Mac TV was finished. Very cool.

If anyone cares about the Altair, it came with one switch broken... the on/off switch.  DOH!  It has flat switches like the 8800b which I've been searching for for a little while.  They stopped making them 15 years ago so that's a bummer.  I guess I was 0 for 2 today. 

 

[unity]

I think the light is red for a little bit. Then turns yellow. When yellow you can press the power button and it should turn green. If it flashes red, there is an issue. But with bad caps, no network this may all be irrelevant.

Whats an Altair?

 

[unity]

I figured someone may find this handy.

0306983AppleTVBox.pdf

 

[snuci]

Thanks for that but I read the manual before getting it and even the Wikipedia page tells you about the startup LED colors but mine stays red.  I'll wait a while and see what happens.  Maybe I didn't wait long enough?

 

[unity]

I figured you had, but incase someone come across this thread. Some of these old resources are getting hard to come by!!

As for the LED, not sure. Its been so long since I had one to play with! I actual hope you get it to boot/respond in some way. I never really did attempt anything with mine.

 

[CompuNurd]

Whats an Altair?

Pretty much the first personal computer ever made.

http://oldcomputers.net/altair-8800.html

 

[snuci]

Pretty much the first personal computer ever made.

http://oldcomputers.net/altair-8800.html

Thanks for posting that CompuNurd.  I wasn't ignoring the question. I had assumed the smiley face after Unity's question meant he knew what that was but I shouldn't make assumptions and there may be others who might not know exactly what an Altair is.  That acquisition is all about the history and making these dinosaurs work.     

 

[unity]

Yes.. I knew.

 

[krye]

I scored an Interactive Apple TV on eBay years ago too. Great collectible. Too bad they are useless today. There's actually no software onboard. The front-end was loaded over the cable company's network. There's only enough firmware in the ROM to connet to the network and pull down the gui. Sadly, there's no way to boot it up or load software nowadays since that infrasture no longer exists. Not that it even got out of beta.

 

[Macdrone]

Too bad a home server with the software connected to a network couldn't make it useable. You could always contact Disneyland. They may have a bunch somewhere and an old server with the software loaded.

 

[olePigeon]

They're not useless.  I believe there are instructions somewhere for converting them into a regular LC.

 

[Paralel]

Yep, they can be made to run plain old System 7 (with the interactive TV box specific extensions loaded) booting off an external drive.

 

[Byrd]

You could always contact Disneyland. They may have a bunch somewhere and an old server with the software loaded.

Oh yeah I could just imagine that working a treat:

"Hello Disneyland?  Do you have software for a 1990's Apple Interactive STB that was never properly released on your servers I could have a look at?"

"Why no problem at all sir, in fact I have that very software available for you right now"

 

[Macdrone]

I also mean they have the units somewhere also, along with the server that they used in the hotel.

 

[snuci]

I did mess around with mine by trying to hook up a SCSI hard drive and even trying to use it as a SCSI device to read it but didn't get anywhere.  After some research,. I did take a quick look around for a vintage nCube server and Oracle Media Server software (which is what they used) but came up empty handed. . The Apple ITV netbooted from this sytstem.  I wonder if that could be set up on something else?

Note: the jack in the back is not standard ethernet so that makes it a bit more difficult too.  

 

[Paralel]

You need the last revision of the ROM on the ROM stick, and a few other things I can't remember, along with the STB specific extension for System 7, but it can be made to work, it just takes quite a bit of effort. But then you have a System 7 machine that can be hooked up to a TV as a monitor, which is kinda neat.

 

[max1zzz]

Anyone got any links on how to do that? I don't have a STB, but i was always under the impression that no one had got video out of one of the box's under system 7

 

[Macdrone]

I don't know enough about it but I would try harder if I had one of course.

 

[Paralel]

There are a few articles that discuss it scattered around the internet. You should be able to pull them up through Google. That's where I have found them in the past.