Seen on eBay, a fairly common prototype after all: the Apple TV from the nineties, aka Apple Interactive Set Top Box.
To summarize, it’s a compact Mac equipped with an MPEG decompression card (the first version), tested by cable operators in the nineties (Plein Câble in France, BT in the UK, Belgacom in Belgium, etc.). Functionally, it’s a 68040-based Mac with adapted I/O ports and a connection interface. It’s not Ethernet (or modem) but something specific to connect to servers that streamed video. You can tinker with it a bit to boot the OS of the time, but by default, it’s mainly a fancy paperweight… offered at several hundred dollars.
Some hidden ports
