The props department created the video-capable Newton MessagePads by putting an iPhone 12 Pro Max into a custom-built case. The accessory camera module was added to conceal the actual phone's camera and is therefore not detachable. An app with a retro-styled UI was then used on the phones to make video calls live on the set.
This episode takes place in July 1992.
In several takes, it is shown that people on Earth and in the Jamestown Moon Base are using Apple Newton MessagePad 120 PDAs as two-way, full color, video calling devices, including docking cradles and PCMCIA (PC card) video cameras adapted to them. In our reality, not only that the MessagePad 120 wouldn't exist before 1996, but it certainly wouldn't have such audiovisual capabilities (in the show's alternate reality the technology was far more advanced by mid-1990s). In a couple of moments, upon finishing a video call, the real, black-and-white desktop and icons of a Newton MP120 from "our reality" can be briefly seen though.
WILHELM SCREAM; heard during the political ad.