October 1993: Apple announces the Macintosh TV, a combo that includes an Apple CD 300i player for audio CDs and data CD-ROMs, a 14-inch television with 640×240 resolution, two speakers, a TV tuner internal by cable (NTSC setting of course), video output a 60MB hard disk, 5MB of RAM and a 32 MHz processor, a Motorola 68030 chip. All for $2,079. Result: bad. Very bad.
Macintosh TV, the great “jewel” that failed
The disaster of this launch was nothing other than the chronicle of an announced death. A few months earlier, Apple had pressured John Sculley to leave the board., in favor of Michael Spindler. Yes, the same Sculley who hired and fired Jobs just 15 months later.
And it was not the Apple of Steve Jobs, who in 1985 found himself on other shores to found NeXT. It was an Apple that was sweeping selling video games like Civilization, SimCity 2000 and Prince of Persia and wanted to finish conquering the room, integrates as the ultimate gaming system. But it was too cumbersome and too expensive, both to produce and to sell.
Only 10,000 Macintosh TVs were made, with no DB-15 connector or ability to switch from TV mode to pure PC mode – it took a reboot to do so. Its remote control was also not to the taste of the time: with these tunes Atari could not compete with the rectangular and light controls of the Dutch Philips. In fact, years later, anyone could own one of these collectibles for just $200.
This Macintosh television was actually an Apple Power Macintosh 5500/225, a direct legacy of the Macintosh LC 500, the 14-inch desktop computer.
In fact, the analog board is essentially the same as the Macintosh LC520 and the logic is a modified LC550. With a matching keyboard and mouse, this Mac TV never really took off: five months after it went on sale, it disappeared from stores.
Pictures | Apple Macintosh TV from 30 Pin Pictures, Apple World from Vectronic
