The (Mystery) Machine

December 1991. THE ONE magazine published an article by Dave Gruisin about a Los Angeles conference with the grim name of InterTainment 91 (was there ever an InterTainment 92?). The hot news at this industry shindig concerned something called "The Machine". The Machine was protected behind a wall of non-disclosure agreements and yet somehow everyone knew all about it even though no one was talking. According to Dave Gruisin: "The Machine is quite simply going to revolutionise home-computer entertainment." So what was it?

From Dave Gruisin's article:

The Machine is a consumer-oriented CD multimedia device due for launch in Summer 1992. It will cost less than £600 and will feature a technical specification superior to either CD-I or CDTV. It will come with a software base biased toward entertainment (which really sets it apart from CD-I) and of high quality (which sets it apart from CDTV). Some of the titles will have been in development for over 18 months (which definitely sets it apart from CDTV) and will be sourced almost exclusively from the States and Japan. Most of these titles will come from companies with extensive prior experience in CD development, which further argues for their potential quality.
The Machine will almost certainly feature full-screen, full-motion video capability and a Sony drive mechanism. It may, conceivably, carry the Apple brand-name and operating system, but although a unit of this nature is strongly rumoured, it seems very possible that The Machine is actually a separate entity.

The Machine is clearly not the Phillips/Sony CD-i or the Commodore CDTV. The ideal time to try and solve any mystery is 34 years and four months later, so let's examine some of the suspects. 

We'll eliminate the obvious first. I don't think The Machine was the Sega Mega CD, or the Sony Bookman, or the TurboDuo (a TurboGrafx-16 with a CD-ROM drive, made by NEC Home Electronics and Hudson Soft for North America). I think it's reasonable to assume nothing short of a cutting edge piece of new kit would excite the attendees of InterTainment 91 and so that's what The Machine is most likely to be rather than an add-on or upgraded bit of existing technology.

3DO. I always assumed The Machine had to be the 3DO. Everything about it seems to match the description. The estimated price of $600 is close enough, more or less, to the actual first on sale price of $699. The technical specification. The software. It all sounds really close to what appeared in the shops in October 1993. Here's the clincher, Trip Hawkins even gave the keynote speech at InterTainment 91 [1]. Why would the person who thought up the 3DO be there, except to boost this new and exciting console? Case closed.
I was confident enough about this to include all the InterTainment 91 stuff in my first draft of the 3DO article. Except... the dates don't work, as I belatedly realised when I had a proper think. InterTainment 91 was held in the week of 7 October. That's less than a month after Trip Hawkins spun the 3DO off from Electronic Arts. It's way too soon for people to be talking about the 3DO in those breathless terms. Dave Gruisin reported them talking about The Machine as a nearly finished piece of kit, not vapourware. No one would have 3DO software which had been in development for 18 months. October 1991 is just too soon for anyone to be that excited about the 3DO.

Super NES CD-ROM/Play Station. The next most likely candidate was the doomed Nintendo/Sony project to make a SNES compatible system that would support both cartridges and CD-ROMs.
Sony would, obviously, be supplying the drive mechanism and the Play Station would certainly be capable of full-screen, full-motion video capability. The SNES was a big deal in America. It had been launched in August 1991 and by the end of the year Nintendo were reporting sales of 2,000,000. Take that level of interest, bolt it onto the untapped potential of a new CD-ROM drive, and you've certainly got something which would attract the interest of anyone attending InterTainment 91.
Laura Buddine of Tiger Media talked about "...something coming from someone who's big enough to blow Philips and Commodore out of the water." That describes Sony or Nintendo by themselves. Imagine how exciting a team up would be.
Except... by October 1991 the Play Station was not a secret. More importantly it was virtually dead in the water. Stabbed in the back and front by Nintendo at the June 1991 Consumer Electronics Show. Sony announced their Nintendo deal and the the day after Nintendo announced they were also working with Philips to make a CD-ROM add on for the SNES. The project would limp on for a few more months before being cancelled, and then Sony announced its own console and the rest is history.

Atari Panther/Jaguar. Development of the Panther started in 1988 for a planned Christmas 1991 release, before being cancelled in favour of the Atari Jaguar. I think the Panther was a cartridge based system rather than CD-ROM which immediately rules it out of contention as The Machine.

The Jaguar is a bit more possible. It was pushed by Atari as a 64-bit system on the slightly dubious grounds that it contained two 32-bit coprocessors. This would have been seen as tremendously exciting at a time when 16-bit consoles were still selling like hot cakes, and the new generation of 32-bit machines were still in development.
Except... the Jaguar like its predecessor was a cartridge based system and it didn't get a CD-ROM drive until September 1995.
More importantly, in 1991 would anyone describe Atari as big enough to blow Philips and Commodore out of the water?

Apple Pippin. Apple get name-checked in Dave Gruisin's article but, like Atari, I don't think  Laura Buddine talk about them in such glowing terms. In 1991 they were not the company they are today.
The Pippen is part of the period when Apple were thrashing around and trying to find a new direction. Why not try a multimedia gaming box with internet capabilities?
Except... once again, the obvious strike against The Machine being the Pippen is the dates. They don't match. The Pippin's sales life covers 1996-98 and I don't think Apple were working on it before 1993. There's no way for the Pippin to be the object of excitement for the InfoTainment 91 attendees. 

So, is there any piece of hardware released in 1992 that matches Dave Gruisin's description? Obviously the answer has to be yes because otherwise this article would end here on a disappointing note. However, I will be amazed if you've heard of what comes next.

Tandy Memorex Video Information System

RADIO SHACK CATALOGUE
1992

The Memorex VIS comes closest to matching Dave Gruisin's description of The Machine. It was released in time for Christmas 1992 at a cost of $699. The Memorex brand was owned by the Tandy Corporation who, alongside Apple and Commodore, brought computers into people's homes; starting with the TRS-80 in 1977. Tandy also owned the Radio Shack chain of shops, which is where the VIS was exclusively sold. All three were big brand names in America and individually any of them would have been regarded as "big enough to blow Philips and Commodore out of the water." 

The VIS attracted a range of software for education and entertainment. Access Software converted their golf game Links. Icom Software produced versions of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, volumes one and two. Sierra on Line were working on versions of Space Quest IV and King's Quest V. Working on, because those games never appeared owing to what happened next. The Memorex VIS flopped, terribly. An archived blog post at joeduncan.net lists the flaws of the system and the assorted mistakes Radio Shack made along the way to end up with a system shop staff nicknamed "Virtually Impossible to Sell."

Or was it something else? If you have any suggestions for the identity of The Machine please leave a comment or send an email to whereweretheynow@gmail.com. I am also on Bluesky @shammountebank.bsky.social

[1] Please assume a small piece of my soul flakes off and dies every time I have to type InterTainment.