WebTV

One way of accessing the Internet without an actual computer is to use your television. All you need is a TV, a phone line, and a WebTV terminal (which comes with a cordless keyboard so you can surf from the couch and truly become a mouse potato). WebTV was the first all-in-one, TV-based online service with an STB (set-top box). It was designed to remove the complexities of setting up a computer and loading the proper software on it for Internet access. We have one caveat, however. Some of the Web sites we've visited with WebTV look a little different than when you view them from your computer desktop on a Netscape or IE browser (the most obvious difference is that things look a little squashed vertically), and there seems to be some technology that doesn't work quite right with WebTV (we've gotten several complaints about using JavaScript and are told it does not support Java). For these reasons, there are style guides available to help Web designers create Web pages that look the best that's possible on WebTV. WebTV was acquired by Microsoft and is now known as "MSN TV Service."