In 1993 Apple had quite an interesting device shown at MacWorld Boston and called WALT. This was an acronym for Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone and it was basically a traditional landline phone with some extra features. The device even had a touchscreen, if you can believe it and used a stylus to interact with it. And now the product’s prototype reached eBay…
WALT uses a modified System 6 with Hypercard GUI for features such as faxing, banking, to show a contacts list and offered customized ringtones, plus a message pad with handwritting recognition. Keep in mind that this product never made it to the real product market, but it did advance enough through the process to get an instructions manual. It’s fascinating how advantageous knowing how to fax from email to fax number is to business operations. The eBay listing also mentions that the device has SCSI and VGA output inside. If you want to purchase the unit on eBay, know that it’s not functional because of a loose connection.
The pricing is of course huge, since this is an Apple prototype after all. WAT goes for $8,000 with the Buy It Now options and bidders are also available for higher offers. This price could give you quite a bunch of new iPads, but nothing beats a bit of vintage Apple technology.
