{"id":667,"date":"2010-06-14T11:56:29","date_gmt":"2010-06-14T16:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=667"},"modified":"2010-06-14T12:31:23","modified_gmt":"2010-06-14T17:31:23","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-att-videophone-2500","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/667\/retro-scan-of-the-week-att-videophone-2500","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> AT&T VideoPhone 2500"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AT&T<\/a>“Discover a new way to ‘Reach out and touch someone!'”<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

AT&T launched the VideoPhone 2500 in 1992 with high hopes that it would finally bring video calling to the masses. Ultimately, it fared no better than AT&T’s previous attempts at commercial video phones<\/a>, all of which exited the market quickly after their introduction.<\/p>\n

For $1599.99 ($2,486.19 in 2010 dollars), you received a single phone unit that could send audio and color video (at up to ten frames per second) simultaneously over a regular phone line. It worked its magic through a 19.2 kbps data stream, which is minuscule by today’s standards, but was state of the art in 1992. Unfortunately, the video functionality of the VideoPhone 2500 was useless without another $1599.99 phone to interact with — perhaps the fatal flaw in AT&T’s plan.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested in learning more about the history of video telephone technology, check out my latest Technologizer slideshow, 132 Years of Videophones<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[ From Sears Great American Wishbook, 1992, p.714A ]<\/small><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> If you owned an easy-to-use videophone device — and everyone else had one — how often do you think you’d use its video functionality?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Discover a new way to ‘Reach out and touch someone!’” AT&T launched the VideoPhone 2500 in 1992 with high hopes that it would finally bring video calling to the masses. Ultimately, it fared no better than AT&T’s previous attempts at commercial video phones, all of which exited the market quickly after their introduction. For $1599.99 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,27,26,8,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-technology-commentary","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}