Is anyone interested in an Interactive Networks control unit?

Stan Sieler

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Mar 4, 2025, 4:58:07 AMMar 4

Hi,

I'd like to find a home for my Interactive Networks control unit (in original box).

IIRC, it was a failed startup that was trying to market some kind of set-top box to connect to the 'net and do "things". (What things? No recollection! :)

Information about IN is quite hard to find on the net, possibly because of age (it died about 25 to 30 years ago), and the bland name which has so many possible uses.

Side note: our lake house has a table and chairs from the Interactive Networks cafeteria!

When they went under, WeirdStuff Warehouse bought the company's furniture (and marketing's promotional swag ... there was apparently no swag unbought by IN!) ... and a set ended up with us :)

thanks,

Stan

(in Cupertino)

Paul Steffen

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Apr 5, 2025, 9:29:59 PMApr 5

to Bay_Area_(Retro)_Computer_Hobbyists, [email protected]

Problem with picking such a generic name as "Interactive Networks" is the company literally vanishes without a trace.

Always a shame. One of my favorite things to find at Weirdstuff/Halted/Excess were product prototypes, especially products that never would come out. Couple things I've found:

A blue plastic box with an touchscreen LCD, completely handmade and "made by R.I.M." on the back. Looks like a medical device.

A small Qualcomm tablet that was used to demo their Mirasol display tech, e-paper like tech but could do color & play video inspired by butterfly wings - Apple purchased the tech for a future smartwatch but hasn't used it.

A possibly one-of-a-kind Atari Jaguar test fixture board, coincidentally Weirdstuff's location was formerly part of Atari.

A linux evaluation board and a bunch of large e-ink screens that was intended to be the "largest e-paper device on the market" but was cancelled by Rupert Murdoch. Well before the success of reMarkable & Boox.

Miss places like Weirdstuff...

A few years back, I won an eBay auction on a big real-time computer graphics computer but I uhh neglected to pick it up on a timely basis - it was the start of Covid. Company had similarly generic naming (Digital F/X based in Palo Alto). Founder of Adobe was on it's board of directors and found a paper on how the hardware worked by the lead engineer.

Would be curious to know what an Interactive Networks control unit is, and any model numbers I can use to try to find out more about this company.

Paul

Stan Sieler

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Apr 6, 2025, 12:25:47 AMApr 6

to Paul Steffen, Bay_Area_(Retro)_Computer_Hobbyists

Hi,

(I see it's "Interactive Network", not "Interactive Networks", sorry.)

Some pictures attached (assuming the mailing list server doesn't strip them :)

The last has FCC # E2050VAT-1200CK

It looks like it might have a few games in ROM, but it's oriented towards interacting (somehow) with

either FM broadcasts or TV broadcasts, I think.

It has a built-in modem (don't know the baud rates supported), connected via RJ-11.

After opening it for photos today, I remembered: it has a problem, the display shows a moving horizontal line, and nothing else :(

Still available ... the first person who asked for it never showed up, nor contacted me again.

Here's a similar one on eBay, although lacking the box, manuals, and power supply:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/405577083187

...they're asking $176, I'm asking "0, but pick it up in Cupertino" :)

Stan

Paul Steffen

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Apr 12, 2025, 11:20:51 PMApr 12

to Bay_Area_(Retro)_Computer_Hobbyists, [email protected], Bay_Area_(Retro)_Computer_Hobbyists, Paul Steffen

Thanks for the great information and the pictures. The logo looks so familiar that I'm almost certain I picked up one of these or something with that logo on it.

The most information I could find about this company was from Wired Magazine

https://www.wired.com/1993/01/talk-back-to-your-tv-not/

Interesting concept but so many companies tried and failed at making one-way "connected" devices enticing. I still have my Fossil Microsoft Wrist.NET watch which used the ill-fated SPOT network. Also have a media player device that came with a hard drive filled with movies - it had a built-in modem to communicate back when you want to pay to 'unlock' the movie. New movies would be constantly downloaded to the device over an antenna. Disney was a major investor in the company. The hard drive used firmware protection (an unlock key had to be sent to the drive within a period after starting up, else it'd lock out) but of course people found how to bypass this by swapping cables while keeping the drive powered).

Now we have single chip multi-core 32-bit computers on a single chip that does WiFi, runs a TCP/IP stack and cheap enough to embed into light bulbs & toothbrushes.

Sadly I'm down near Monterey and don't get up that way that often anymore but if I do in near future I can ping here, unless someone closer might be interested in this relic.