The Microsoft Touch telephone

Yesterday I saw on the Dutch second hand website Marktplaats a new listing for a Microsoft Touch. It’s a touch-tone telephone made by Ascom Zelcom AG as the OEM. It came with 3 floppies and I really wonder what those were used for, because it does not look like to have any connection to a computer.

It still had the original box and I really wanted to have it for my telephone collection, but unfortunately it was already sold. The phone appears to be a Microsoft branded version of the Ascom Aura, which won the IF Design Award in 1993.

On Usenet posts I found some references that indicates it is a 14400 baud modem, which implies support for V.32bis. But I can’t say for sure they talk about the same product. See here. Apart from this, I been unable to find any more detailed information like a specification sheet, listings in older computer magazines or the Wayback Machine. If anyone knows a pointer to this, please let me know! It appears that Ascom Zelcom AG never had a website before the brand went defunct, but I also found no info on the Ascom website archive.

Here are the pictures from the original listing:

Pictures are copyrighted by the original owner and Microsoft for the package design. I put them here anyway for archival purposes :)