Apple Interactive Television Box

The Apple Interactive Television Box or ITV, also internally identified as STB (set-top box), is a television set-top console that had been in development by Apple Computer before the launch of the Pippin platform. Some third party sources have also called this the "Pippen", though no Apple documentation refers to it as such.

Hardware
The ITV was based on an Apple Macintosh LC 475 running a customized version of Macintosh System 7.1.1 with support for MPEG-1 playback through QuickTime software and a CL450-P160 decoder. It included processors from, , , , and.

Models

 * STB1: Early prototype designed by Apple in 1993 and assembled in Austin, Texas for internal technology trials. The generic case contains a modified 25MHz Macintosh LC 475 logic board connected to an audio/video board (part number AP2336-02) with, and ports. The  port supported the  standard for  and  networks. 100 units were produced for.
 * STB2: Interim prototype which did not go into mass production.
 * STB3: Near-final design assembled in Ireland and assigned FCC ID: BCGM4120 for market trials in the United States. Some specimens included connectors for consumer testing in Europe. v6.B and v7.0  were used. One specimen appeared to support a faster 33MHz 68LC040 processor. Unneeded components, such as the floppy disk controller, were eliminated to streamline cost. 2,800 units were produced for British Telecom. Apple also bid to provide units to.

Testing
After internal testing at Apple in 1993,  conducted a technology trial of model STB1 in March 1994 with 60 employees in the Suffolk town of. Testing in Europe was carried out in partnership with, British Telecom (BT), and. Market trials with model STB3 began in in May 1995 and expanded to 2,500 households near London in the following autumn.

The UK version of model STB3 was branded by BT as the Voyager 2000 Interactive TV System and was deployed in and. The year-long trial included 8 schools and 4 public access points. Services included on-demand television, educational content, games, online shopping and banking. The user interface and video animation were designed by Dot New Media.

Apple and conducted trials in six states in the United States. Network functionality was provided by Media Net, which would download a "stack", a multimedia  application that was authored with. Interactive educational programming was provided by The Lightspan Partnership. For units tested in the area, MPEG-1 content was streamed at 1.5 Mbps over an, a technology that was being developed by Bell Atlantic subsidiary Bellcore. Bell Atlantic ran their service trial on four servers, which could each store up to 10,000 feature-length films.

Marketing
Apple unveiled the set-top box at the multimedia pavilion of the at Las Vegas in April 1995. At the in May 1995, Apple outlined its milestones for market trials of its interactive television technology.

At Macworld Expo San Francisco in January 1996, Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki showed off a Pippin Power Player prototype running alongside an ITV model STB3 at Apple Computer's exhibit.

" “ We believe ITV has the potential to be the low-cost portal to the information superhighway. ” — Rick Shriner Vice President, Apple Core Technologies "

Cancellation
Though support for MPEG-2 and games were being considered,  further development was cancelled after the ITV was deemed not to be commercially viable.

BT GameCart
The rare British Telecom GameCart has a Mini-DIN-8 serial port that would allow content to be downloaded from a Voyager 2000 Interactive TV System (BT's version of the ITV) to a console. Games available for digital download during British Telecom's Ipswich test included ' and '.

Aftermarket usage
With interactive services no longer available, default installations of ITVs are no longer fully functional. Set-top boxes containing a red ROM  are capable of booting Mac OS 7.6 to 8.1, but then video is not displayed due to lack of compatible video drivers. File sharing can be enabled and the set-top box will identify itself as a Macintosh 470 Series, Machine ID: 89.

Articles

 * The History of Apple and TV by Robin Parrish at Apple Gazette (2012-05-31)
 * [Prototype Apple Interactive Television Box] by Pierre Dandumont at Le Journal du Lapin (2014-09-15)
 * Un prototype de Set Top Box Apple en vidéo by Pierre Dandumont (2018-12-28)
 * A visual history of Apple’s TV products by Dan Frommer at Quartz. (2015-09-08)