I have been curious as to what they were like. British Telecom apparently loaned them to digital cable subscribers in 1994 in a test that was successful, but then Apple killed the project. From what I could gather from tech PDFs they would had been used for an early form of On Demand TV. Would had been among the first gen digital cable boxes.
Due to having the Mac OS it could had been expanded into a web browser/email checker if allowed by the CableCo.
Or be put in a CableCo walled garden with news, weather, an encyclopedia, and perhaps an email access provision.
A part of the reason for it flopping, is that its intended role (Digital Cable Converter) was well ahead of its time. Most systems were not digital until 1999 in the USA. Most cable systems in 1994 were only 1 direction:download. I know that Adelphia Cable (since absorbed by Comderp) had only made their systems support both up and down data by 1998. It involved replacing amps and taps.
Apple jumped into a market that did not exist. :?: