Qube

The earliest large attempt to bring iTV as we know it, to American homes (but it wasn't the first iTV type show.  See Winky Dink.)  It was developed by Warner Communications for cable customers in the later 1970s and first offered in Columbus, Ohio in December of 1977.  (It was stopped in 1984.) The Qube system consisted of a Set-top Box with a computer chip and some memory (unheard of at the time. Remember this is several years before anyone ever even heard of Apple Computers.)  It offered more channels than the standard 20, kept tabs on customer's preferences, offered polls to vote on concerning programs, offered Pay Per View movies and more. Remember that in 1977, few consumers had VCRs but unfortunately for Qube, VCRs, video movies and video stores were about to become popular and Qube wasn't as an impressive service as compared to the iTV of today.

(Products, services and websites vary with time. Please verify.)


If a Web page doesn't come up, you may
wish to try The Way Back Machine