Hardware Models/MAT972 (Europe)

The Philips MAT972 is a (LC2) classic WebTV box manufactured by Philips and likely manufactured as part of a trial of the WebTV service in Europe.

To date, only three of these boxes have ever surfaced, with two of them in working state. It has been discovered they do not run the conventional firmware regular WebTV boxes do, instead opting to use an early variant of Windows CE 3.0. The browser happens to be a customized build of Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, naming itself MSIE for TV/1.0 in its user agent.

Technical Specifications

• CPU: Quantum Effect Design RM5230 @ 167 MHz
• RAM: 16 MB (2x 8 MB Toshiba TC59S6416BFT-10 DRAM chips)
• Storage: 4 MB Flash ROM
• Boot ROM: 4 MB (2x 2 MB chips)
• WebTV Solo ASIC
• WebTV Port
• DS2401 Silicon Serial ID chip
• V.90 Rockwell modem

Pictures

Note: One of the three boxes looks identical to an american MAT972. The following is the Italian language variant.

All pictures provided by Ryder from the WebTV/MSN TV Discord.

Unit

Front of Italian MAT972 unit

Back of Italian MAT972 unit

---

Top of Italian MAT972 without cover, featuring boot ROM chips dated 7/22/98

Bottom of Italian MAT972 without cover

Associated remote and keyboard

Associated remote and keyboard with WebEye