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Burpethead · Feb 24, 2001, 06:16 PM

Hi, I got a rare Apple System off ebay. It is a smiple black pizza box, and has a powerbook SCSI connector, RF In, RF Out, a Ethernet Jack, a Serial Jack, a S-Video jack, and RCA Video/Audio Jacks.
When i open it up it has a 68040 @ 25 mhz, and it has a chip labeled "MPEG Decorder". I believe you hook in a input device (TV, VCR, etc), and hook the SCSI into a Macintosh, and it will capture the input device and save it on your Macintosh's Hard Drive as a MPEG-1 File. Is this right? or am i Wrong, thanks!

schalliol · Feb 24, 2001, 08:59 PM

Whoa! I don't think that that is an Apple TV unit, but rather a TV set top box that may have been called Pippin! Apple made a unit that looked like an LC520 (I think), but was black and had a black keyboard. You could also use it as a TV.

The set top box was supposed to be Apple's entrance into interactive TV, etc. I don't know what you could do with it at all, perhaps run the Mac OS on your TV. Do you have a remote or keyboard/ADB port?

Please post pictures!!!

I haven't heard of anyone hooking one up. I would be weary of hooking one up to a Mac SCSI port (if you value the Mac). If it has an Ethernet port, I doubt you are supposed to hook it up in this way (perhaps you can add a hard drive to it) because you can certainly use the Mac's ethernet port.

How much did you pay for it and what's the URL of where you bought it. That would help. This certainly did not ship in quantity.

Burpethead · Feb 24, 2001, 11:42 PM

its not that LC, it is nothing but a flat box about the size of a VCR. I will take pictures soon. This, whatever it isnt even authorized by the FCC, and is labled to not be sold anywhere, so, obviously, it is for apple internal use only. and it is apple because of of the apple logo on it.

schalliol · Feb 25, 2001, 11:12 AM

Awesome, awesome. Whatever you paid, I bet it was a good deal. I think I recall seeing pictures similar to it before. Perhaps other people have seen one in operation. If not, I may know another place where people may know what it is.

ariella · Feb 25, 2001, 05:46 PM

http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...ts/mac_tv.html (?)

schalliol · Feb 25, 2001, 06:17 PM

Doesn't sound like the link above is it.

barry_black · Feb 26, 2001, 12:48 PM

Looks like he bought a prototype apple set top box. I think they actually used these things in europe for a bit. Basically, it allowed for digital tv to be sent over cable and decoded by the unit. I don't think it was even intended to plug into a mac. It is actually very similar to today's digital cable boxes. It ran the mac os and I think allowed for some level of interactive tv. I don't think they had hard drives and got their os from a network server or something of the like. Basically, what you bought is a cool piece of apple history but utterly useless. I've heard that there is a warehouse of these some place.

barry_black · Feb 26, 2001, 12:50 PM

One more thing. I don't think this is a pippin. Pippin's aren't pizza box shaped and looked more like a dreamcast. It also had controller ports on the front and said pippin on it... which would be a sure give-a-way. Also, I believe the pippin had a ppc chip in it.

Burpethead · Feb 26, 2001, 07:35 PM

I will be posting many pictures and full specifications on it soon in a new topic!