Remembering the Macintosh TV
October 5th, 2010 by Benj Edwards
Recently, Macworld asked me to write something about the rare and mysterious Macintosh TV (1993) to tie in with the launch of the 2nd generation Apple TV. So I did, and you can read the result over at Macworld.com today. Here’s the teaser text from the site:
Apple’s recent overhaul of the Apple TV has pundits scrambling to analyze and dissect the company’s renewed push into the living room. Judging from all the excitement, you might think “Apple + TV†was something unique to the 21st century. Not true. Benj Edwards revisits Apple’s first foray into TV-computer integration, circa 1993.
Hope you enjoy it.
Does anyone out there own (or formerly own) a Macintosh TV? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences with it in the comments below.
October 6th, 2010 at 9:30 pm
Never owned a Mac TV, but we owned a Performa 550 which is basically a Mac TV except without TV capabilities or a cool black case.
I heard that the Mac TV was marketed to space-cramped college students. Cool idea: One of my long-range goals is to get an Elgato EyeTV for my computer and figure out how to make my Wii remote work with it.
October 9th, 2010 at 2:02 am
I almost bought one. I was standing there at the NEW Best Buy debating between the Macintosh TV and Performa 600 (IIvx). I chose the 600 since I already had a TV and it was much cheaper. The 600 was also handicapped so it wasn’t really that much of a better computer.
October 9th, 2010 at 7:33 pm
I’ve never owned one, but just like all Mac collectors, I’m looking for one. Cheap.
Yeah right…
October 8th, 2011 at 12:08 am
This was our family computer in the late 90s. Although we rarely watch the home shopping channel, an ad for this computer came on in 1994 and my parents decided to buy it. I used it all through high school. I used to run the Grolier encyclopedia on it back before the days of Wikipedia. We used the TV tuner some, but not as much as you might think because you couldn’t use the computer as a computer and watch TV at the same time. I did like the little remote that came with it, which was a pretty cool novelty to play music CDs. Like most macs back at this time it used the old CD caddy so you had to put the CD in a plastic housing before inserting it in the drive.
October 20th, 2012 at 9:32 am
I have a friend that owns one. He is wondering who would be interested in buying it and of course how much it is worth.