Apple's 1993 W.A.L.T. Combined Telephone and Fax Machine Prototype Seen in Action in New Video

[DeepIn2U]

This is actually pretty cool!

Waiting a full 3mins before you can dial the phone is cool?
Public Enemy "911's a joke" track comes to mind here.

You could literally goto your next door neighbour and dial using their phone before this was even ready. Apple has had 3 concepts of a home phone being connected. Thank god they stopped: all they were was a glorified Apple Newton.

 

[BigBoy2018]

They need to come out with one with thinner bezels. Then it would sell like hotcakes to all the ‘form over function’ people in the imac forums.

 

[supremedesigner]

It said Orlando in the maps. I wondered if that’s the latest maps version or it’s pre-internet maps?

Looks very cool but slow! Holy!

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

Indeed, I love this experimental and precursor stuff from the 80s and 90s. Like the French Minitel or a similar Canadian system called Telidon.



Yea, don't remind me of lag on my old modem circa 1994-95.

People are really spoiled today. I remember those 24-hour downloads quite well. I still have nightmares.

 

[elasticmedia]

At Macworld Boston in 1993, Apple introduced a prototype device called the Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone, or the W.A.L.T., the company's first desktop telephone and, like the Newton, a precursor to the iPhone.

Little is known about the W.A.L.T., and while it's been seen in images, there's never been a video of it in action, until today. Sonny Dickson this morning shared a video that shows the W.A.L.T. being used, and it's a fascinating look at early Apple technology.

Unsurprisingly, the W.A.L.T. takes a while to start up given its age, but it's functional, running Mac System 6. The W.A.L.T. featured a touchscreen, fax functionality, on-display caller ID, a built-in address book, customizable ringtones, and online banking access.

As shown in the video, it had a series of hardware buttons for activating various functions, and it worked with a connected stylus that could be used for navigation and writing. There's a ton of lag when using the stylus, though, so writing doesn't look great.

The video walks through many of the available operating system options, from a user identification card to fax settings, which included options for customizing notifications, creating greetings, and more.

W.A.L.T., which was designed with telephone company BellSouth, was made from PowerBook 100 parts, and according to Dickson, prototypes came with an "unusual" manual that included basic instructions like "Do not use WALT near water" and "Do not drop WALT."

Apple shelved W.A.L.T. and ultimately did not release the device, but the remaining prototypes provide an interesting look back at Apple's development efforts more than 25 years ago.

Dickson also has a selection of photos showing the hardware inside of the W.A.L.T., which are well worth checking out if you're interested in classic Apple hardware.

Article Link: Apple's 1993 W.A.L.T. Combined Telephone and Fax Machine Prototype Seen in Action in New Video

[doublepost=1554853156][/doublepost]Is it true the Chinese spy had one of these in Mara Lago?

 

[w5jck]

Good thing they never released it. Even for its day it was much slower than using an actual FAX machine! That was pretty cool how the cursor tried to run away and hide from the light pen though! It was probably a good concept test bed though and likely helped lay a foundation for the Newton, which Jobs immediately cancelled upon his triumphant return. There were so many devices similar to this released by various companies in the mid 1990s, and they mostly all were failures. The technology simply wasn’t there yet.

 

[neutrino23]

Wait, Apple introduced a product and then didn’t ship it before AirPower? That should be the headline...

Happened more than once.

PowerBook G5.
Newton being spun off as a separate company.

Not to mention good products that were canceled like iWeb and Aperture.


There were a lot of good ideas back in the day, but we didn't have the technology to make them happen. Go find an olde Byte magazine from the 80s and look at the ads in the back. You will be amazed at seeing small, slow hard drives selling for over $10,000.

When I traveled in Japan on business in the 90s, to get email and such I had to go to a public phone which had a phone connector, hook up my laptop, dial-in to a provider and feed in telephone cards while I was downloading email and other news. It could easily take $10 for a session depending on the location.

 

[b92b0b33ef5340e]

Would buy one of these running iOS (and Ethernet) in a heartbeat.
(Would buy an HomePod if it had Ethernet in a heartbeat too)

 

[Macalway]

You can see the Newton there. Newton was very cool.

 

[mikethemartian]

Apple really should really setup a room, area or museum for projects like this. Set a date(~25 years, or whatever they think) then take projects like this with the documentation and shelve it. Then when the time is reached put them on display. You read about stories in books and from retired engineers about projects at Apple that sounded really cool but never went anywhere.

Didn’t Steve Jobs donate most of the vintage stuff to Stanford University when he came back in 1997?

 

[stars_fan]

And in 2019 I still have to support faxing over SIP in my network at work. Garbage technology then and still is today

 

[AutisticGuy]

Today we’ll be introducing two new products. A phone and a fax machine. A PHHHONNE and a FAXX Machine....a PHONE and a FAX machine.....do you get it? It’s ONE product!

 

[mikethemartian]

Say my Name!!

Heisenberg

 

[carrrrrlos]

That was both painful and enjoyable to watch.

 

[TVreporter]

Can’t wait until 2045 to get a demo of AirPower!

 

[SuperCachetes]

Already been plenty of “OMG THAT THING IS SO OLD” jokes, but seriously it even looks like it’s made of Bakelite. Wow.

 

[ocnitsa]

Install an emulator and run some NES on there.

 

[makingdots]

Any Apple stuff between 1985 to 1997 shouldn't really be called "Apple" because it's not under Steve Jobs.
Macrumors shouldn't confuse tech community that Apple worked an absurd tech including Newton.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Any Apple stuff between 1985 to 1997 shouldn't really be called "Apple" because it's not under Steve Jobs.
Macrumors shouldn't confuse tech community that Apple worked an absurd tech including Newton.

What ****ing rubbish.You saying Apple didn't exist for 12 years?; stop trying to re-write history. What you suggest is the same as nazi's burning books because they don't agree with them.

Also Steve Jobs died in 2011; are you saying we haven't had an Apple for the last eight years?

 

[ani4ani]

W.A.L.T

Very apt for the modern Apple....Wait A Life Time for a product upgrade.

 

[Tevos]

That's pretty awesome find/device.

Yessss Apple look closer what you did not so long ago. Not glued, fully repairable, no BS genius Bar required. Can we have that end-user friendliness back, please?

 

[RodThePlod]

You can see the Newton there. Newton was very cool.

Yeah it used a similar industrial design to Newton, but from an OS level, Newton was much more usable. I actually got my first Newton in late 1993 and remember W.A.L.T well, together with some of the other projects Apple was working on back then.

Some used the first versions of Newton OS, some used a modified Mac System software like that shown in the video. Apple also had other versions of phone/fax combo devices like W.A.L.T that were Newton OS-based, and they worked much better than the version shown here (even though Newton OS was still buggy as hell in these initial versions!)

 

[gkarris]

ah the 90's...

when Technology was there,

but it wasn't...

 

[Tech198]

haha.. "Do not drop W.A.L.T" I like it. Perhaps this is WHY it was never released. Steve probably felt ashamed of touch screens, which is always argument today.

Never seem a thing like it. The histories uncovered

 

[GadgetBen]

"Who wants a stylus? You have to get em', put em' away. You lose them. Yuck. Nobody wants a stylus"