Essential Equipment

You need three things to use WebTV: the terminal and remote, a keyboard, and the wires and cables that connect your terminal to the phone lines, TV, and possibly VCR (and with the Plus, cable and DSS can be connected; with the Dishplayer, you will have a satellite dish in addition to the box itself).

Terminal & Remote

The terminal and remote come together, and it's pretty obvious you need these, and have them, if you're reading this. To read about the similarities and differences between the Classic (old and new versions), the Plus (old and new), and the Dishplayer, click here.

Keyboard

A keyboard, while technically an "optional" item, is really a necessity if you're going to be able to use WebTV effectively. Especially if you're going to be writing e-mail or posting to newsgroups, you'll go crazy trying to use the onscreen keyboard with the remote.

With the original Classic, you can use either an IR keyboard (Sony or Phillips Magnavox) or a PS-2 computer keyboard (wired, connecting to the back of the terminal). If you have the WebTV Plus, a new Classic, or a Dishplayer, you'll either have to use the IR keyboard (there's no wired keyboard port), or buy an after-market adaptor (it costs about $35, and is available from Optimized Micro Devices).

The Plus/Dishplayer keyboard will control TV functions, such as volume, channel changes, and "flipping" from TV to the Web (although the remote also has these functions, and the Classic Sony and PM keyboards will work with the Plus and Dishplayer).

Cables & Wires

There are two main types of cables and wires needed for the Classic: telephone, and audio/video. The telephone wire runs from the terminal to the wall jack. The RCA cables (yellow for video, red and white for audio) are used for running audio and video signals from your terminal to the TV (or to the VCR, then from the VCR to the TV). You can also run video to your TV with an S-video cable if your TV has an S-video jack (you still have to run the audio with the red and white RCA cables).

There are additional cables and wires usable with the Plus and Dishplayer, because it has an integrated TV tuner (and satellite receiver, in the case of the Dishplayer) inside the unit. You can run cable directly into the Plus terminal (into the Antenna coax input), which is cable-ready (it will also work with a cable-converter box running into the coax input). The terminal can also control your cable-converter box through the IR blaster. The Dishplayer is connected to the sat-dish's coaxial cable in the back, and has no ability to tune cable channels.

Accessories

Printing

To print with the original model Classic, you need a Hewlett-Packard series 400, 420, 600, 610C, 612C, 660C, 670C, 670TV, 672C, 680C, 690C, 692C, 694C, 697C, 810C, 812C, 880C, 882C, or 895C printer; users recommend the 400L or 672C models; an IEEE 1284 cable (you can't use a generic 1284 cable, which is less expensive; IEEE version is designed for use with high-speed bidirectional printers like the HP's that work with WebTV); and the currently elusive printer adapter (either Sony or PM, depending on what brand of the Classic you have).

With the new Classic, old and new Plus, and the Dishplayer, you don't need an adapter (it has a built-in printer port), and you can use HP's 520 or 540 model, or Canon's BJC-210, BJC-240, BJC-250, BJC-4100, BJC-4200, BJC-4300, BJC-4400 (scanner head doesn't work with WebTV, however), BJC-4550, BJC-610, BJC-620, BJC-80, BJC-1000, BJC-2000, or BJC-6000 Bubble Jet printers, in addition to the HP printers usable with the Classic.

Printers

The HP 400 series are single-cartridge printers (only the black or color ink cartridge can be in place at one time), they're very compact, but relatively slow with color. They're cheap, and if you're going to mainly be printing black text, it's probably your best choice for printing with a WebTV.

The HP 600 series hold both the color and black cartridges at the same time, saving you some time, and they print color significantly faster than the 400 series. Note: WebTV terminals can't properly use the HP photo cartridge; it will actually print, but the quality will be no better than a regular color cartridge.

WebTVers who've tried the Canon printers with their Plus terminals have generally reported that the colors aren't as saturated as prints from the HP models, and blacks tend to print out a greenish dark gray; HP looks like the product to go with, although if you already have a compatible Canon printer you may decide to just stick with that.

If you have a printer and you're having any problems, here are Hewlett-Packard's and Canon's help pages.

IEEE 1284 Cable

This cable is available in different lengths depending on your needs, and you really ought to shop this on price, different stores can vary as much as 250% on this item. Note: get a real IEEE 1284 cable, not a "1284 compliant" cable; printers won't work with WebTV if it's not the real thing.

Printer Adapter

For the the original Classic to be able to connect to a printer, you need to find an adapter (Sony's part #PA-W100 or PM's adapter #MPR975 [Sears' part #80157]), which isn't that simple a proposition. If you can find a store that can order it for you, prepaid, you'll have your best chance of getting it in a reasonable amount of time

In fact, if you have an old Sony Classic, you almost certainly won't find an adapter. You can, however, buy and modify a P/M adapter (they at least exist, but may become harder to find as P/M phases out their original Classic) as described here.

Connecting your Printer to WebTV and a Computer at the Same Time

You can share your printer between your WebTV terminal and a computer (if you have one), by using a Bitronics AutoSwitch. Connect the WebTV and the PC to the AutoSwitch, and the AutoSwitch to the printer, with DB25 cables, and you can print from either the WebTV or the PC without disconnecting anything.

Scanners–Not!

You can't use a scanner with WebTV, unfortunately. When a scanner scans, it creates an image file that has to be stored somewhere. With a computer attached to a scanner, the image data is stored on the hard drive (or a floppy disk); the Classic has neither, and the Plus's drive isn't user-accessible for storing files.

If you get an picture scanned, have the person doing the scanning save the results as a JPEG file, at a maximum of 640 × 480 pixels (full-screen on a WebTV, anything larger would be a waste, slow to load and large to store). Then ask them to e-mail the pictures to you, one in each message so the e-mails won't be too large to view on your terminal. Then you can separate the image and place it in a homepage directory yourself, using only your terminal. To find out how to do this, click here.

There are some individuals offering services to scan pictures for you (some do this for free, some charge a little; a couple will even store the pic online for you to link to for a monthly fee). To find someone to scan and/or upload for you, click here; you can also get pictures scanned and uploaded at a Kinko's or similar business. To find out how to get a homepage at GeoCities, click here.

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