IPhone is not the first Apple phone

The iPhone is Apple's first cell phone, but not their first phone at all. In 1993, it seemed that mobile communications would remain a premium service forever. But this even gave an advantage to the developers, because a stationary phone with a built-in computer can be made quite large. The WALT (Wizzy Active Lifestyle Telephone) was released in several instances for MacWorld. Her visitors must have been a little upset that the phone they saw there didn’t hit the store shelves.

In general, the name is strange. What relation to an active lifestyle can a stationary apparatus have?

The device, developed jointly with BellSouth, received quite advanced functions for its time: online banking, touch screen, fax and Caller ID, built-in address book, the ability to change the ringtone, handwriting as in Newton.

It is assembled for the most part from parts of the PowerBook 100 laptop, and runs on System 6 with modified screensaver and interface. The OS is located on the hard drive, not in ROM, as on some early Macintoshs.

So WALT looks from the inside from the side of the motherboard:


And the display, for communication with the sensor is responsible for the interface card:


It is better to control a resistive sensor with a stylus, and here it is very convenient:


Instructions were attached to the device, which not only said that it was a prototype, but also gave instructions such as “Do not use the WALT near water”, “Do not drop the WALT,” as well as an illustration warning against stepping on cords.

WALT provides external interfaces typical for those years: SCSI, VGA, audio output. Instead of Finder, it uses HyperCard. Now let's see how it works: