Tech Throwback: Web TV

I like to take a look at where I’ve been to evaluate where Im going. Technology is cyclical after all… wait no its not. That said I still like all the feels that come rushing back like a flood of nostalgia every time I get my hand on the tech I grew up with. Im going to go back periodically and take a looking at the stuff that used to blow our hair back and get our minds rolling. Some of these device blew up and changed the world, some where ahead of their time and some just fell flat and became colossal failures. Today we have a massive swing and a miss. This was an idea that seemed right and destined for greatness but just missed. Today lets pull up the old Web TV.

This was the brain child of  Steve Perlman. He first combined computer and television as a high-school student when he decided his home PC needed a graphics display. He went to build software for companies such as Apple and Atari. While working at General Magic, the idea of bringing TVs and computers together resurfaced.

One night, Perlman was browsing the web and came across a Campbell’s soup website with recipes. He thought that the people who might be interested in what the site had to offer were not using the web. It occurred to him that if the television audience was enabled by a device to augment television viewing with receiving information or commercial offers through the television, then perhaps the web address could act as a signal and the television cable could be the conduit. Pretty brilliant and right there in front all of our faces.

Web TV and How it Worked

Web TV was launched on September 18, 1996 with Web TV set-top boxes in stores from Sony and Philips. They ran all of the servers in an old BMW dealership.The initial price for the Web TV set-top box was US$349 for the Sony version and US$329 for the Philips version, with a wireless keyboard available for about an extra US$50. The monthly service fee initially was US$19.95 per month for unlimited Web surfing and e-mail.  The box featured a 64-bit RISC CPU chip, and a smart card reader. The smart card reader was not utilized significantly. The web browser was compatible with both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer and the Web TV set-top box featured 2 MB of RAM. The first WebTV set-top boxes had a 33.6 kbit/s modem, and later versions had 56kbit/s modems.

By 1998 Web TV was on its way, they where pulling 1.3 billion dollars a year and it looked like we where on the way to a TV/computer consolidation. Then Microsoft stepped in 2001. They purchased Web TV and it all seemed to fall apart. They keyboard and controls where difficult to use. The applications where not growing with the rest of the tech world. Shortly after the MSN TV re-branding it was all but dead in the water.

The Final Thought

With out the adaptations of the most popular internet apps and functions this just became that cool thing that one friend in the neighborhood had. Skip forward a few years and Smart tvs are a cornerstone to our digital world. While I attempted to find an old Web Tv box and play with it in a demonstration for this article, apparently its just not feasible with there being no internet connection service to log on through. Web Tv came and went with no fanfare, soon to be totally forgotten. Never getting its just deserves and never to be seen or used again but for those brief years of 95-2001.