The Model 70 was the grandchild of the Picturephone
, an AT&T Bell Labs idea-ahead-of-its-time that had bounced around since
1954. People didn't want to be seen on the phone in the 1950s
(or the 1960s or the 1970s), but they did
seem open to the idea of appearing on their computer screens at work. The
Model 70 not only made simultaneous video communication possible, it offered
its callers the ability to open, view, and edit files, as well as annotate and
write comments on the screen with a mouse or keyboard commands.