Yeah that was so cool of him! I think it's awesome TH-cam has this little community of people that love this stuff like I do and make it possible for people like Michael to make these videos!
This was an enterprise level technology that someone thought the average person would use. Upper level managers in large corporations would probably think this was the best thing ever, because it's something that they would use all the time.
I worked at MS during that time period. One thing people did not like was that it required a dedicated PC to be on 24x7. If the system had problems it would not answer ecord messages. It did not always work well running in the background, such as while playing a game.
Yah, people weren't used to leaving their PCs on 24/7 then -- partly existing habits of turning things off when not in use (to not waste electricity), and partly because home versions of Windows (especially 3.x and 95) were not entirely stable enough to be left on. And even if they didn't crash from general instability, there was still a Windows timekeeping bug that would crash it after a little under 50 days uptime. Windows 95 and 98 (and I think MS-DOS before them) had an internal clock counting the number of milliseconds since boot. And since it was only a 32-bit integer, it would roll over to zero after 2^32 ms -- or 49 days + 17 hours + 2 minutes + 47.296 seconds -- if not rebooted. (By contrast, 2^64 ms is more than 58 million years.)
All of those things were entirely predictable, given PCs of the era, and I even had the appropriate gut-level skepticism when I got the overview of what this thing did. I laughed when I saw the voice command support, because of course. Of course it uses voice commands. If there was one feature we were all obsessed with having on computers that had no business processing real-time audio, it was real-time voice recognition. So who _wouldn't_ want to tie up their one and only household computer with clunky software running on an underpowered OS on slow, unreliable hardware to do a job that a $50 appliance could do perfectly, but at 4 times the price?! And yes, I obviously had a voice modem back then, despite knowing full well the inevitable heartache it was going to cause. haha
"a hardware product from 90s Microsoft, intended for a market that Microsoft wasn't in yet, that only sold for about a year" ah, yes- The MJD video checklist
Don't forget being already several years outdated by the time it was out. It would probably be fine if it came out in like 1995, but in 1998 they already had USB and voice modem faxes.
certainly not. its a shame because the Windows phone and Zune were both great products, just ill-timed and badly marketed, too-little-too-late or whatever
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell Come to Jesus Christ today Jesus Christ is only way to heaven Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will John 3:16-21 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. Mark 1.15 15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Hebrews 11:6 6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Jesus
I don't remember this phone specifically, BUT I turned 10 in 1998 and was going to Circuit City, CompUSA and other stores with my grandfather browsing computer stuff. He retired in 2000 and jumped into computers hardcore and we had a hobby of going to various thrift stores and getting the stuff they were going to throw out and taking it to his place and getting it running again in his basement. In one of our trips in 2001, we found a like-new SNES with about 30 games in a Corona beer box and I told him we better swipe that before they put it out for sale and they sold it to us for $20 because the SNES was considered "old" by some after the N64 and Gamecube had arrived. The TL;DR of this post is people like me, who grew up with this stuff really appreciate all you do for the preservation of older technology. I'll never be able to afford being a hardcore collector because I work in I.T. at a State College which doesn't pay as much as I.T. everywhere else, but it's okay because I get to help the future of our society. But channels like yours, LGR, the 8BitGuy, and many others, give my sons an opportunity to see the things I grew up with. So thank you. I could have said this alot quicker.
@@cloudycolacorp I agree. I relive what I can through virtual machines and emulation other than the handful of stuff I still have (like my high school PC still running WIndows XP Pro)
Not exactly on topic, but related: I had one of the first Windows mobile phones. It was shocking. It was like whoever had engineered the OS had never ever used a mobile. If someone texted you and you were reading that text, you couldn't then ring them from there. It was mental. Full of idiotic dead ends and things that didn't join up as a journey to getting things done
I had an LG Windows Phone 7 and I distinctly remember it being pretty ass, lmao. Some of the games on it were fun but that phone made me hate Metro UI styles
I don't know what it is but I love 90s. Computer boxes, everything back then just had these beautiful looking screenshots of like the software and stuff.
Stuff like this brings back memories even though never owned this phone, but because my parents bought me a computer in 2000. I was intrigued on technology introduced to me at the time. I remember the laser focus on products to revolve around the PC. At the time, it was the future. I never got any cool tech as I was a teen and I didn't have the money. But like always, thank you for the video. Keep up the excellent work!
9:56 I can remember having a US Robotics Supra internal modem in the Windows 95 era that let me set up mail boxes for my family and each one had a different password so only the person that the message was for could retrieve it, it was quite an elaborate voice mail system that ran on a 486 computer. I spent a fair bit of time setting it up. I also had 2 lines at the time and one was dedicated to data. I had some kind of hardware switcher that knew voice calls over data calls.
I wanted one of these so bad when I was a kid back in 98. One of the Microsoft product discs had a video about it and I was obsessed. I remember having the software running on my computer (it was a demo or a trial) and setting it up the answering machine function then making the mistake of leaving it connected to our phone line one evening when we went out. We came home and all of the calls had been answered by my computer. Some people just left voice messages, but others were confused because they didn't hear my aunt's usual greeting. Got into a bit of trouble over that. 😅
@@McVaio (internal)56k modems could also be used as a phone. I remember trying the same here in Finland, making a call from Windows PC by the modem. It worked but we did not have use for it
I think this product was ahead of its time. Apple tried something similar earlier in the decade with having their Mac (a specific Quadra, IIRC) replicate your phone, answering machine, fax, etc. I think in the 90s, people just weren't ready yet for one device doing everything. Both this and Apple's attempts probably would have worked out better if they showed up in the early 00s, when the idea of the smartphone was less exotic.
That phone adapter box is wicked! I missed most of your video after you showed that as I realised I can use a retro cool phone, hook it into my home assistant and speak commands to it. Next pointless but fun project sorted, thanks so much! Tbh that phone looks kind of cool, I can see that being handy for the home professional back in the day, so many features we take for granted or were cutting edge and now obselete
I owned one of these back in the day. May still have the hardware in storage. Not sure on CD but I feel like I saw it more recently than the hardware. The call screening and remote retrieval were why we used it. One PC ran that, and monitored the fax line and was our dialup / dsl router setup. Amazing system for yesrs.
OMG Michael MJD! I was actually a beta tester for this way way back in the day! I actually forgot this was a thing. Testing this thing was awful. It stopped working before the beta test was even over. I was originally on the beta teams for Windows 9x and then Windows Me. They offered this to me and I accepted. I remember hating this thing. I'm pretty sure I tossed it shortly after it went RTM and I sort of wish I had kept it just for historic purposes. But I was like 18 at the time so I was too dumb to think that far ahead. Thanks for another great video!
This tbh was mainly a software thing. Back then my family had one of these phones, not Microsoft branded. They were still able to use the internet from the same landline while making a call. The software used worked with a small number of phones and you were able to do this, transition from computer to phone and back. My grandma was a nurse so it helped a lot when she was at home and we wanted to use the computer.
The first I ever heard of this thing was from a commercial for it Microsoft included on the CD for Windows 98 SE as part of that "Interactive CD Sampler" catalog.
I had one of these! Still do, techinically, somewhere in my garage. It had some pretty cool features, though the handset stopped charging after a few years.
Fascinating. I think the main thing I remember about this was the advertisement for it that came on the Windows 98 CD, but this video was more comprehensive.
I was managing an EB when these came out. Windows computers of the era were energy hungry, loud and not great at being left on for days. Which you had to do for it to work. They also didn’t multitask well. Someone called while you were playing a game it would become unplayable. The software also just loved to crash. People were used to phones and answering machines that just worked and often this didn’t.
I had one, bought new, but on the south side of cancelation (clearance price) . It worked great for what it was. I really liked how it had call blocking and the ability to play custom messages based on the calling number. It eventually broke and I moved on.
Man, combined with that bluetooth device, I actually kind of want one of these. Like, I would legitimately use it. Upsetting that there aren't any out there.
Hang on ... they're telling us that a 2.4GHz phone has.... _better_ range than a 900MHz phone? I don't think someone knows how wavelength works. Unless this phone just has awful range... Still remember taking my old AT&T 900MHz phone over to my friend's house -- down the street. Worked fine.
This is pretty cool I remember seeing it once or twice but didn't know about the voice command function. Mac OS X had a voice commands function for the system back on OSX 10.3 but it wasn't integrated with the phone. I also had a Compaq desktop computer with voice modem and it came with a pretty sophisticated answering machine speakerphone software that could do some of what this could do. Although the cordless phone and voice commands addition is kind of nice. It's not really a big deal if the Computer goes off it would just be like in the olden days when the power went out your answering machine and cordless phones didn't work but your corded phones did. Having it come back up and restart restart on power failure and re-open the software would be a requirement but if it was that mission critical you probably should've had a UPS anyway. There was also this nifty little software called Willow phone from Willow media which had some of the same functions as the speakerphone call, Contact management that was freeware but I could only get it to work on certain systems with certain voice modems which was annoying, And then everything went soft win modem. I always thought it would be really cool to have a laptop with voice modem that could act as a mobile speakerphone that I could bring with me and just plug in at somebody's house. This all sort of pre-dated the time that people would leave there Home computers on all the time. and Also very few people had caller ID because that was a usually an expensive up charge from the phone company.
I remember these type of internet phones were made to help allow people to still make phone calls while they’re on dial up internet! I feel Microsoft didn’t care enough about of letting people use their own phones while they’re connected online. That was the biggest problem internet users had during the dial up era!
Forget the phone and Call Manager, but Microsoft Voice's command capabilities seems like something a power user could geek out on with a good microphone (compete against IBM VoiceType).
This actually reminds me of this awesome Compaq all-in-one PC I had back in the day. It started with Windows 3.1, which I upgraded to 95. It has an insane built in Phone/Answer/Contact/Recording suite. I miss that old computer.
I had one of these and I LOVED it. I wish I still had it. In college, everyone thought it was cool that my landline phone would ring with the Austin Powers/In Like Flint phone over the phone as well as computer speakers. I used it for years.
They also made routers! I had one, unfortunately it ended up dying on me within the warranty period, they ended up just sending me a check to refund me instead of fixing it.
Dang... you're right. I just looked for one for sale and couldn't find anything :( I threw mine away in the early to mid 2000s. The ONLY problem I had with mine was that I'd have to re-pair it to the base frequently, and as you likely discovered the contacts have to touch JUST perfectly for it to work. It does not like any corrosion or crud on the contacts.
I feel like even today this is so wicked and cool, must have blown some minds back then, but sometimes things are just not meant to be eh. I remember how amazing it was when skype came out and we could call our friends, it was magical. Maybe people just weren't aware of its capabilities. Anyway, cheers to the guy for making this possible, it was a great watch!
I did not know this flopped! My dad had one of this at home and at his office, also many of his colleagues had it and used every day. I wonder we still have it at home
Damn my dad used this for his general contracting business from the 90s to about 2006. He loved the thing and kept a old win98 laptop hooked just for the phone after he upgraded his PC to windows XP.
And so the Blue Tone of Death was born, at a certain point, the device's firmware (which was based on Windows 95) would become unstable during a phone call, the device would freeze, the user would hear the last two seconds of what was said on a loop. for a few seconds (call buffer), before the firmware displayed the blue tone of death, a tone generated from a chord that sounded similar to an 8-bit Phantom of the Opera chord. The user would then have to restart the device using the Call, End, Zero key combination, and wait for initialization, which took 1m 35s.
Sounds much like a FRITZ!Fon on a FRITZ!Box. Except that the FRITZ!Fon has a color display and does not need a PC at all. Works fine on a Smartphone and Boxtogo app.
Not sure if you played with it, Microsoft also made a program called Microsoft phone that was sold with Sound blaster modems, this program supported TAPI (Microsoft's voice system in Windows), and later on, I got it working with Windows 10 with a USR voice modem, and still worked well.. Till I finally got rid of my home phone line (cell phones work in the house, why do we need a phone?) Neat product and I think it was more advanced software wise.
![BOWKYLION - วิงวอน (ex-change) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cLdnZWDaO-w/mqdefault.jpg)
To the man who gave the disc scan - thank you for making this video possible!
@@Devo1987 They are members so they can watch early
@@Devo1987 I'm traveling in time...
Jokes aside, being a channel member grants you this perk
Wow
Yeah that was so cool of him! I think it's awesome TH-cam has this little community of people that love this stuff like I do and make it possible for people like Michael to make these videos!
no problem
This was an enterprise level technology that someone thought the average person would use. Upper level managers in large corporations would probably think this was the best thing ever, because it's something that they would use all the time.
It would be quite powerful back in the day I imagine, makes a neat setup
Lol I think it's the best landline gadget ever and I'm just average
I worked at MS during that time period. One thing people did not like was that it required a dedicated PC to be on 24x7. If the system had problems it would not answer
ecord messages. It did not always work well running in the background, such as while playing a game.
Yah, people weren't used to leaving their PCs on 24/7 then -- partly existing habits of turning things off when not in use (to not waste electricity), and partly because home versions of Windows (especially 3.x and 95) were not entirely stable enough to be left on.
And even if they didn't crash from general instability, there was still a Windows timekeeping bug that would crash it after a little under 50 days uptime. Windows 95 and 98 (and I think MS-DOS before them) had an internal clock counting the number of milliseconds since boot. And since it was only a 32-bit integer, it would roll over to zero after 2^32 ms -- or 49 days + 17 hours + 2 minutes + 47.296 seconds -- if not rebooted. (By contrast, 2^64 ms is more than 58 million years.)
All of those things were entirely predictable, given PCs of the era, and I even had the appropriate gut-level skepticism when I got the overview of what this thing did. I laughed when I saw the voice command support, because of course. Of course it uses voice commands. If there was one feature we were all obsessed with having on computers that had no business processing real-time audio, it was real-time voice recognition.
So who _wouldn't_ want to tie up their one and only household computer with clunky software running on an underpowered OS on slow, unreliable hardware to do a job that a $50 appliance could do perfectly, but at 4 times the price?!
And yes, I obviously had a voice modem back then, despite knowing full well the inevitable heartache it was going to cause. haha
All the phone lines at Black Mesa are busy? That's probably not a problem, probably.
You can call Black Mesa.
That was a joke, haha, fat chance.
"BLACK MESA CAN KISS MY BANKRUPT-"
Cave Johnson: 1970's
@@thereisonlymusic quote from Still Alive from Portal 1.
"Gordon doesn't need to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional!"
Excuse me
Oh man, I was really hoping I could listen to Freeman's voice finally. So sad he wasn't available.
I bought one of these from a Goodwill in 2003 for 50 cents. I still have no idea what it did, I just thought it was cool.
This video shows
Hell yeah man
how did you brought it for only 50 cents?
@@Iso_Tech7_YT Goodwill Outlet had flat 50 cent pricing back then.
@@Iso_Tech7_YT he probably gave 50 cents to the cashier.
"a hardware product from 90s Microsoft, intended for a market that Microsoft wasn't in yet, that only sold for about a year"
ah, yes- The MJD video checklist
Don't forget being already several years outdated by the time it was out.
It would probably be fine if it came out in like 1995, but in 1998 they already had USB and voice modem faxes.
Microsoft haven't been really lucky with phones, have they?
ikr
They still manage to spread similar tech pain with Microsoft Teams.
With smartphones, the issue is they tried pushing it towards the windows experience and not what the natural evolution of phones were going.
certainly not. its a shame because the Windows phone and Zune were both great products, just ill-timed and badly marketed, too-little-too-late or whatever
Not true. Their CE devices did well but sadly later ones didn’t do so well.
We need the crazy ass Microsoft hardware from the 90s.
The Windows phone, before the Windows phone.
Both flopped 😮😢
But the new Windows Phone exploited how expensive the iPhone was to make IT flop 😂
Exactly 🤔
With Cortana before Cortana.
Jesus Christ is the only hope in this world no other gods will lead you to heaven
There is no security or hope with out Jesus Christ in this world come and repent of all sins today
Today is the day of salvation come to the loving savior Today repent and do not go to hell
Come to Jesus Christ today
Jesus Christ is only way to heaven
Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
Heaven and hell is real cone to the loving savior today
Today is the day of salvation tomorrow might be to late come to the loving savior today
Holy Spirit Can give you peace guidance and purpose and the Lord will
John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
I don't remember this phone specifically, BUT I turned 10 in 1998 and was going to Circuit City, CompUSA and other stores with my grandfather browsing computer stuff. He retired in 2000 and jumped into computers hardcore and we had a hobby of going to various thrift stores and getting the stuff they were going to throw out and taking it to his place and getting it running again in his basement. In one of our trips in 2001, we found a like-new SNES with about 30 games in a Corona beer box and I told him we better swipe that before they put it out for sale and they sold it to us for $20 because the SNES was considered "old" by some after the N64 and Gamecube had arrived. The TL;DR of this post is people like me, who grew up with this stuff really appreciate all you do for the preservation of older technology. I'll never be able to afford being a hardcore collector because I work in I.T. at a State College which doesn't pay as much as I.T. everywhere else, but it's okay because I get to help the future of our society. But channels like yours, LGR, the 8BitGuy, and many others, give my sons an opportunity to see the things I grew up with. So thank you. I could have said this alot quicker.
Older relatives super into computers were always so cool
@@cloudycolacorp I agree. I relive what I can through virtual machines and emulation other than the handful of stuff I still have (like my high school PC still running WIndows XP Pro)
Not exactly on topic, but related: I had one of the first Windows mobile phones. It was shocking. It was like whoever had engineered the OS had never ever used a mobile. If someone texted you and you were reading that text, you couldn't then ring them from there. It was mental. Full of idiotic dead ends and things that didn't join up as a journey to getting things done
I agree. My husband briefly had one and it was so counter-intuitive and not user friendly.
I had an LG Windows Phone 7 and I distinctly remember it being pretty ass, lmao. Some of the games on it were fun but that phone made me hate Metro UI styles
I remember trying out someone's Windows Mobile phones back in the day and yeah, it was incredibly hard to find anything in that OS.
I don't know what it is but I love 90s. Computer boxes, everything back then just had these beautiful looking screenshots of like the software and stuff.
I remember Circuit City! Great video on the Microsoft Phone!
"Do not make illegal copies of this disc" lol
It's for necessity
Stuff like this brings back memories even though never owned this phone, but because my parents bought me a computer in 2000. I was intrigued on technology introduced to me at the time. I remember the laser focus on products to revolve around the PC. At the time, it was the future. I never got any cool tech as I was a teen and I didn't have the money. But like always, thank you for the video. Keep up the excellent work!
I miss circuit city man 😭
Yea
Even I missed all Windows phones sigh 😢
i think everybody does :(
@@burts06 yeah personally I wish I could make a video of how Microsoft just discontinued the Windows phones
9:56 I can remember having a US Robotics Supra internal modem in the Windows 95 era that let me set up mail boxes for my family and each one had a different password so only the person that the message was for could retrieve it, it was quite an elaborate voice mail system that ran on a 486 computer. I spent a fair bit of time setting it up. I also had 2 lines at the time and one was dedicated to data. I had some kind of hardware switcher that knew voice calls over data calls.
I wanted one of these so bad when I was a kid back in 98. One of the Microsoft product discs had a video about it and I was obsessed. I remember having the software running on my computer (it was a demo or a trial) and setting it up the answering machine function then making the mistake of leaving it connected to our phone line one evening when we went out. We came home and all of the calls had been answered by my computer. Some people just left voice messages, but others were confused because they didn't hear my aunt's usual greeting. Got into a bit of trouble over that. 😅
I love this! Parents were so bitchy back then, LOL
And how exactly did you connect their regular landline phone to your computer?
@@McVaio (internal)56k modems could also be used as a phone. I remember trying the same here in Finland, making a call from Windows PC by the modem. It worked but we did not have use for it
I think this product was ahead of its time. Apple tried something similar earlier in the decade with having their Mac (a specific Quadra, IIRC) replicate your phone, answering machine, fax, etc. I think in the 90s, people just weren't ready yet for one device doing everything. Both this and Apple's attempts probably would have worked out better if they showed up in the early 00s, when the idea of the smartphone was less exotic.
this video was released just after my new motherboard arrived for my socket 775 motherboard arrived. thank you for making my xp build better :)
That phone adapter box is wicked! I missed most of your video after you showed that as I realised I can use a retro cool phone, hook it into my home assistant and speak commands to it. Next pointless but fun project sorted, thanks so much! Tbh that phone looks kind of cool, I can see that being handy for the home professional back in the day, so many features we take for granted or were cutting edge and now obselete
I owned one of these back in the day. May still have the hardware in storage. Not sure on CD but I feel like I saw it more recently than the hardware. The call screening and remote retrieval were why we used it. One PC ran that, and monitored the fax line and was our dialup / dsl router setup. Amazing system for yesrs.
I remember the promo video for this phone in the Windows 98 Install CD
OMG Michael MJD! I was actually a beta tester for this way way back in the day! I actually forgot this was a thing. Testing this thing was awful. It stopped working before the beta test was even over. I was originally on the beta teams for Windows 9x and then Windows Me. They offered this to me and I accepted. I remember hating this thing. I'm pretty sure I tossed it shortly after it went RTM and I sort of wish I had kept it just for historic purposes. But I was like 18 at the time so I was too dumb to think that far ahead. Thanks for another great video!
xD
This tbh was mainly a software thing. Back then my family had one of these phones, not Microsoft branded. They were still able to use the internet from the same landline while making a call. The software used worked with a small number of phones and you were able to do this, transition from computer to phone and back. My grandma was a nurse so it helped a lot when she was at home and we wanted to use the computer.
The first I ever heard of this thing was from a commercial for it Microsoft included on the CD for Windows 98 SE as part of that "Interactive CD Sampler" catalog.
6:03 Why call Gordon Freeman? He's mute!
I actually saw this in the files of the Windows 98 setup CD a few months back
Omg i saw one of those at a store years ago thats so cool thanks for the video.
5:25 I love that Portal reference
Don't forget the Half Life reference with Black Mesa & Gordon Freeman but also the Team Fortress 2 reference with The Administrator.
I had one of these! Still do, techinically, somewhere in my garage. It had some pretty cool features, though the handset stopped charging after a few years.
Fascinating. I think the main thing I remember about this was the advertisement for it that came on the Windows 98 CD, but this video was more comprehensive.
I've been waiting for this video since the community post.
I had one and the phone was amazing and the features worked pretty well. Thanks for posting this, what a memory!
That’s actually really cool
Even if it wasn't that successful, you gotta love the innovative nature of the 90-2000s when it comes to tech :)
I was managing an EB when these came out. Windows computers of the era were energy hungry, loud and not great at being left on for days. Which you had to do for it to work. They also didn’t multitask well. Someone called while you were playing a game it would become unplayable. The software also just loved to crash. People were used to phones and answering machines that just worked and often this didn’t.
I had one, bought new, but on the south side of cancelation (clearance price) . It worked great for what it was. I really liked how it had call blocking and the ability to play custom messages based on the calling number. It eventually broke and I moved on.
Fun Fact: this phone was developed by a Singapore Company, which a friend of mine worked on
Amazing. It reminds me a lot of the call transfer capabilities between Apple devices
I could see managers and businessmen utilize this phone from offices or homes in the 90s.
Man, combined with that bluetooth device, I actually kind of want one of these. Like, I would legitimately use it. Upsetting that there aren't any out there.
The predecessor to Windows Mobile and the actual Windows Phone itself.
Hang on ... they're telling us that a 2.4GHz phone has.... _better_ range than a 900MHz phone? I don't think someone knows how wavelength works. Unless this phone just has awful range...
Still remember taking my old AT&T 900MHz phone over to my friend's house -- down the street. Worked fine.
This is pretty cool I remember seeing it once or twice but didn't know about the voice command function. Mac OS X had a voice commands function for the system back on OSX 10.3 but it wasn't integrated with the phone. I also had a Compaq desktop computer with voice modem and it came with a pretty sophisticated answering machine speakerphone software that could do some of what this could do. Although the cordless phone and voice commands addition is kind of nice. It's not really a big deal if the Computer goes off it would just be like in the olden days when the power went out your answering machine and cordless phones didn't work but your corded phones did. Having it come back up and restart restart on power failure and re-open the software would be a requirement but if it was that mission critical you probably should've had a UPS anyway. There was also this nifty little software called Willow phone from Willow media which had some of the same functions as the speakerphone call, Contact management that was freeware but I could only get it to work on certain systems with certain voice modems which was annoying, And then everything went soft win modem. I always thought it would be really cool to have a laptop with voice modem that could act as a mobile speakerphone that I could bring with me and just plug in at somebody's house.
This all sort of pre-dated the time that people would leave there Home computers on all the time.
and Also very few people had caller ID because that was a usually an expensive up charge from the phone company.
Next from Microsoft: A way to store recipes on your PC!
This is actually really cool. Sort of like using a smartphone before the concept.
I remember these type of internet phones were made to help allow people to still make phone calls while they’re on dial up internet! I feel Microsoft didn’t care enough about of letting people use their own phones while they’re connected online. That was the biggest problem internet users had during the dial up era!
I remember getting this. I also remember how it would slide off the dock too easily because of the curve.
this is awesome, but would have been a small market just like you said. Great for tech people back in the day but there were much less of us back then
Forget the phone and Call Manager, but Microsoft Voice's command capabilities seems like something a power user could geek out on with a good microphone (compete against IBM VoiceType).
I remember this! I seen this product on Microsoft CD Sampler on Windows 98 SE Installation CD-ROM.
It's interesting because it's basically an early version of Microsoft phone link
This actually reminds me of this awesome Compaq all-in-one PC I had back in the day. It started with Windows 3.1, which I upgraded to 95. It has an insane built in Phone/Answer/Contact/Recording suite. I miss that old computer.
I only remember these from the Windows 98 interactive sampler. Showed off a bunch of their products at the time. Peripherals, games, etc.
I had one of these and I LOVED it. I wish I still had it. In college, everyone thought it was cool that my landline phone would ring with the Austin Powers/In Like Flint phone over the phone as well as computer speakers. I used it for years.
They also made routers! I had one, unfortunately it ended up dying on me within the warranty period, they ended up just sending me a check to refund me instead of fixing it.
I had one too, used it for years but replaced it with a Linksys 54G eventually as an upgrade
Wow, what a neat phone. Great video!
Microsoft:
Me, going Photonicinduction on them: WHERE'S MY HAMMER!? >:/
Really thought their first phone was windows mobile! Nice video btw
All circuits are busy now, now thats something i haven't heard in a long time.
Now I have know that Microsoft has manufactured phone with your help!!!!
Big love from Kolkata, India! ❤
Today it is called VOIP... 👍
I totally could have used something like this in the mid 00s but I don't think it was sold in New Zealand at all
The x-link also works with old push-button and rotary phones. With the software you can also choose UK or USA dial Tone and Ring-Blips.
In a different time line where lockdown was in the 90s this would have been phenomenal.
Dang... you're right. I just looked for one for sale and couldn't find anything :( I threw mine away in the early to mid 2000s. The ONLY problem I had with mine was that I'd have to re-pair it to the base frequently, and as you likely discovered the contacts have to touch JUST perfectly for it to work. It does not like any corrosion or crud on the contacts.
I feel like even today this is so wicked and cool, must have blown some minds back then, but sometimes things are just not meant to be eh. I remember how amazing it was when skype came out and we could call our friends, it was magical. Maybe people just weren't aware of its capabilities. Anyway, cheers to the guy for making this possible, it was a great watch!
I did not know this flopped! My dad had one of this at home and at his office, also many of his colleagues had it and used every day.
I wonder we still have it at home
Well now you have to get a 900 baby monitor and see if that actually works
It does remind me of some old Philips cordless phone that my parents used t have in the early 2000’s
Imagine it just says the BSOD in text to speech when it isn't working
I was going to post, "Wow! That's a pic of my local Circuit City!" Then I realized every single Circuit City looks exactly the same.
you know what day it is? MJD DAY!!
1:40 "Voice command dialing"
Another option to get a phone line without, yk, getting a phone line
Voice over IP ATAs (Analog Telephony Adapter)
It reminds me of the old Microsoft Sidewinder Gamepad; it's the perfect companion device.
The Ringtone of the Phone sounds like Mr. Game & Watch in Super Smash Bros. 😂
Damn my dad used this for his general contracting business from the 90s to about 2006. He loved the thing and kept a old win98 laptop hooked just for the phone after he upgraded his PC to windows XP.
This was definitely designed for or came from business people.
You should archive the disc on the web
Read the description
That's some over engineered answering machine
Could you use it to talk over VOIP services like ICQ and Microsoft Messenger? (Was Skype around back then?)
Next… MS-DOS based windows upgrade saga
Wow, this is actually pretty slick! Too bad they clearly had no idea how to market it, or to whom.
6:28 back in the early 2000's that was my VM message lol
I saw the community post for this one. ;) :)
The box this thing comes in reminds me so much of the "If Microsoft designed the iPod packaging" video!
Featuring Microsoft's Sa ftware Genuine Authority Security Stable Reputation
5:00 i have a samsung watch that uses cell data through my phone from bluetooth, also it can use its own cell data
NEW Microsoft Surface Phone - Launch Trailer
imagine calling dominos from the microsoft phone, that would be interesting to see.
I dont think GLaDOS would be happy with you calling her for a video lmao
And so the Blue Tone of Death was born, at a certain point, the device's firmware (which was based on Windows 95) would become unstable during a phone call, the device would freeze, the user would hear the last two seconds of what was said on a loop. for a few seconds (call buffer), before the firmware displayed the blue tone of death, a tone generated from a chord that sounded similar to an 8-bit Phantom of the Opera chord. The user would then have to restart the device using the Call, End, Zero key combination, and wait for initialization, which took 1m 35s.
That "all circuits busy" recording sounds like it hasn't been updated in several decades.
Sounds much like a FRITZ!Fon on a FRITZ!Box. Except that the FRITZ!Fon has a color display and does not need a PC at all. Works fine on a Smartphone and Boxtogo app.
I need this in my life.
Very very cool, great idea for video. I never knew Microsoft made phones that early on, but of course they did. :-)
Not sure if you played with it, Microsoft also made a program called Microsoft phone that was sold with Sound blaster modems, this program supported TAPI (Microsoft's voice system in Windows), and later on, I got it working with Windows 10 with a USR voice modem, and still worked well.. Till I finally got rid of my home phone line (cell phones work in the house, why do we need a phone?)
Neat product and I think it was more advanced software wise.