Keyboard connected to tv

deelite

Trying to remember what this was called- it was a keyboard that you attached to your television - it was apparently going to be the "greatest thing ever" every house in the country of Ireland would want one. Not sure what it was even supposed to do but as far as I can remember there was about 100 given out to applicants on the Late Late.


I think it was during the late 1990s - early 2000.

kitakyushu

I've a vague memory it was called a "unison" computer? Can't find anything with google so maybe not, but for some reason that name sticks with me. IIRC it had a black-green colour scheme like an Xbox.

haulagebasher

Oh yes. I remember these. IT was a Unison setup. You had a set top box and a wireless keyboard that had a trackball type mouse thing. It allowed you to browse the internet on your TV. My friend had one in around 2001-2002 time. Not a bad idea either if you simply didn't need or couldn't afford a full PC set up. It worked quite well from my memory and me and friends were using it to look up porn back in the day. I recall coming across some site with "anal sex Clonmel" in it.Company is gone now.


http://myhome.iolfree.ie/~icdg/chorus_unison.htm

Internet Archive has some shots of it's homepage. It peaked in 2004 -2006 then fell off a cliff. Site taken down by 2007 are redirected to independent.ie
http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.unison.ie

thejuggler

I remember they used to sell a similar product locally in Cork called the webpal

http://www.openhardware.net/WebPal/

There was also a device on the late late show called the minitel which is like what the OP mentioned.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

I think they were marketing it at disabled or housebound people as a means of commmunication or doing shopping etc

I guess the rapid rise of the WWW took over fairly quickly in the late 90s

Some more info on Minitel in Ireland

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel#Minitel_in_other_countries
Ireland: Minitel was introduced to Ireland by eircom (then called Telecom Eireann) in 1988. The system was based on the French model and Irish services were even accessible from France via the code"36 19 Irlande." A number of major Irish businesses came together to offer a range of online services, including directory information, shopping, banking, hotel reservations, airline reservations, news, weather and information services. The system was also the first platform in Ireland to offer users access to e-mail outside of a corporate setting. Despite being cutting edge for its time, the system failed to capture a large market and was ultimately withdrawn due to lack of commercial interest. The rise of the internet and other global online services in the early to mid 1990s played a major factor in the death of Irish Minitel. Minitel Ireland's terminals were technically identical to their French counterparts, except that they had a Qwerty keyboard and an RJ-11 telephone jack which is the standard telephone connector in Ireland. Terminals could be rented for 5.00 Irish pounds (6.35 euro) per month or purchased for 250.00 Irish pounds (317.43 euro) in 1992.

miss choc

Yes they were Unison a black keyboard connected to TV with dial up. I rem getting one in 2000 it was the best thing ever as I didnt have a PC. It was brillant. At the time I went to Australia in 2001 and taught my Mam how to use it, was great getting the emails from my parents while away and they were able to check how I was. This of course was way before skype, facebook twitter etc. how times have changed

L1011

Unison was the Irish Indepedent trying to get in to internet access - the newspaper's website was "unison.ie" for an age. That and INM's stake in Chorus was a fairly lame attempt to become the news Newscorp.