Microsoft's First Phone... From 1998

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Thanks to Natalia Bandyra for the English and Polish subtitles!

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Outro Music: Silent Partner - Bet On It

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#MichaelMJD #Microsoft #Phone

[ciach_]

To the man who gave the disc scan - thank you for making this video possible!

[megan_alnico]

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.

[supasimon]

"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

[nrnoble]

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\record messages. It did not always work well running in the background, such as while playing a game.

[WarthogRacer]

All the phone lines at Black Mesa are busy? That's probably not a problem, probably.

[ExtremeNS]

I ACTUALLY have one of these things. Back then, my dad says that this was easiest phone he used at the time. He replaced it with a Nokia 3310 in 2001. Good ol' days.

[eugiblisscast]

Microsoft haven't been really lucky with phones, have they?

[xandercruz]

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.

[Aura_Mancer]

"Do not make illegal copies of this disc" lol

[guidoretro]

Oh man, I was really hoping I could listen to Freeman's voice finally. So sad he wasn't available.

[keiganthetennessean]

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.

[axa]

We need the crazy ass Microsoft hardware from the 90s.

[ram_stick_samurai]

The Windows phone, before the Windows phone.

[MarcBaggett]

I remember Circuit City! Great video on the Microsoft Phone!

[hydorah]

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

[silverknight]

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.

[joshuabrazile]

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. 😅

[luie]

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!

[BRBTechTalk]

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.

[drygnfyre]

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.