As a general rule, much of that type of earlier technology had more to do
with Pie-in-the-sky marketing and wishful thinking, then on technology
available to support such dream machines.
Mattel's Intellivision division in the earlier 80's tried to put their game
consoles onto the cable network to download games and to eventually allow
Intellivisions with the computer component to access online data.
Warner/Amex had been working with their then owned Atari Computer Division
to have the Atari 800's hooked up the Qube network and use the computers
themselves in place of the Qube terminals, I started to track down some info
on this, but the person(s) I had been corresponding with moved and have
since disappeared.
Even Time/Warner Interactive in Florida in 1995 tried to use the Atari
Jaguar 64 as an interactive setup box on their cable network. They went
so far as to design an add-on module (called the Cortina) to the Jag console
to add keyboard and mouse capibility to turn the Jag 64 console into a full
blown game/computer system.
Curt
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ethan Dicks" <dickset_at_amanda.spole.gov>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 11:41 AM
Subject: Re: Qube (warner Amex)
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 05:44:52PM -0500, CBurroughs_at_aol.com wrote:
> > Hello Friend,
> > I actually have an old Qube box in my closet. The weird thing is that
it
> > doesn't work on any other cable systems, except the old qube system.
>
> The old QUBE system is no more (at least not in Columbus, OH, where it
> started). My family had it from day zero (including all the billing bugs
> that were so bad that for the first month, all the movies were free).
>
> > You know much about how they work? I would like to get this one to
work.
>
> I know *nothing* about how cable boxes work. I presume they are a mass of
> switched filter elements, but beyond that, I think most of the magic of
> Qube happened at the other end.
>
> > I have opened the unit, but see nothing wrong that would cause it to
> > power up and then the display goes dead.
>
> Perhaps it doesn't see the right signal from the central cable office?
> Perhaps you have one of the later units that has a tamper switch?
>
> What does your "pendant" look like? Is it the oldest one that's mostly
> roundish with a cylindrical magnetic "key" at the top? Is it newer
> with a wafer key at the cable box?
>
> The very oldest boxes could be coaxed to give up free movies by pressing
> all five "response" buttons, then switching the column from either "C"
> or "T" to "P". The corresponding LED would not change, but the channel
> would. You could then select P1 to P10 with the row buttons, and the
> system would not notice. The next generation box could be tricked by
> holding a speaker magnet underneath and switching columns. After that,
> you had to pry open the pendant and stick a paper clip in the correct
> rivet hole in the response button switch bank (I forget which one).
> Finally, they modified the box to send back billing pulses when a
> premium channel was being displayed (but you could build an analog
> filter to block it). The last incarnation would cut you off if it
> was sending out premium content and did not get any billing pulses in
> a 15 minute interval (you had to call them up on the phone to turn
> your service back on). That was pretty much the end of free pay-per-view
> Qube.
>
> All this information is, um, anecdotal, naturally. :-)
>
> -ethan
>
> P.S. - years after we cancelled Qube for repeated billing screwups,
> I ended up working with one of the office managers and one of the
> Qube billing programmers at Software Results. Heard some interesting
> stories about why things were so screwed up in the early days, but
> they translate to overeager executives and unrealistic deadlines
> made worse by decreasing funding (interactive cable implies locally
> produced programming which became too expensive to produce year after
> year).
>
> --
> Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 20-Jan-2004 16:20
Z
> South Pole Station
> PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -7.9 F (-22.2 C) Windchill -29.9 F
(-34.4 C)
> APO AP 96598 Wind 8.30 kts Grid 346 Barometer 688.5 mb (10305.
ft)
>
> Ethan.Dicks_at_amanda.spole.gov
http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
Received on Tue Jan 20 2004 - 13:05:58 GMT