Uptake Videotex

1 uptake

1.1 uk
1.2 spain
1.3 north america
1.4 australia
1.5 new zealand
1.6 netherlands
1.7 ireland
1.8 minitel
1.9 alex
1.10 minitel in brazil
1.11 south africa

uptake
uk

prestel popular time, never gained anywhere near popularity of ceefax. may have been due relatively low penetration of suitable hardware in british homes, requiring user pay terminal (today referred set-top box), monthly charge service, , phone bills on top of (unlike us, local calls paid in of europe @ time). in late 1980s system re-focused provider of financial data, , bought out financial times in 1994. continues today in name only, ft s information service. closed access videotex system based on prestel model developed travel industry, , continues universally used travel agents throughout country.

using prototype domestic television equipped prestel chip set, michael aldrich of redifon computers ltd demonstrated real-time transaction processing in 1979 or online shopping called. 1980 onwards designed, sold , installed systems major uk companies including world s first travel industry system,the world s first vehicle locator system 1 of world s largest auto manufacturers , world s first supermarket system. wrote book ideas , systems among other topics explored future of teleshopping , teleworking has proven prophetic. before ibm pc, microsoft ms-dos , internet or world wide web, invented , manufactured , sold teleputer , pc communicated using prestel chip set.

the teleputer range of computers suffixed number. teleputer 1 , teleputer 3 manufactured , sold. teleputer 1 simple device , worked teletex terminal, whereas teleputer 3 z80 based micro computer. ran pair of single sided 5¼ inch floppy disk drive; 20mb hard disk drive version available towards end of product s life. operating system cp/m or proprietary variant cp*, , unit supplied suite of applications, consisting of word processor, spreadsheet, database , semi-compiled basic programming language. display supplied unit (both teleputer 1 , 3) modified rediffusion 14 inch portable colour television, tuner circuitry removed , being driven rgb input. unit had 64kb onboard memory expanded 128kb plug in card. graphics standard videotext (or teletext) resolution , colour, high resolution graphic card available. 75/1200 baud modem fitted standard (could run @ 300/300 , 1200/1200), , connected telephone via old style round telephone connector. in addition ieee interface card fitted. on of unit there rs232 , centronic connections , on front connector keyboard.

the proposed teleputer 4 & 5 planned have laser disk attached , allow units control video output on separate screen.

spain

in spain system provided telefonica company , called ibertex, adopted french minitel system, using german cept-1 standard, used in german bildschirmtext.

north america

interest in uk trials did not go unnoticed in north america. in canada department of communications started lengthy development program in late 1970s led graphical second generation service known telidon. telidon able deliver service using vertical blanking interval of tv signal or telephone using bell 202 style (split baud rate 150/1200) modem. tv signal used in similar fashion ceefax, used more of available signal (due differences in signals between north america , europe) data rate 1200-bit/s. tv signal systems used low-speed modem on phone line menu operation. resulting system rolled out in several test studies, of failures.

the use of 202 model modem, rather 1 compatible existing datapac dial-up points such bell 212, created severe limitations, made use of nationwide x.25 packet network out-of-bounds telidon-based services. there many held misperceptions concerning graphics resolution , colour resolution slowed business acceptance. byte magazine once described low resolution , when coding system was, in fact, capable of 2 resolution in 8-byte mode. there pronounced emphasis in government , telco circles on hardware decoding after capable pc-based software decoders became readily available. emphasis on special single-purpose hardware yet impediment widespread adoption of system.

one of earliest experiments marketing videotex consumers in u.s. radio shack, sold consumer videotex terminal, single-purpose predecessor trs-80 color computer, in outlets across country. sales anemic. radio shack later sold videotex software , hardware package color computer.

in attempt capitalize on european experience, number of us-based media firms started own videotex systems in 1980s. among them knight-ridder, los angeles times, , field enterprises in chicago, launched keyfax. fort worth star-telegram partnered radio shack launch startext. (radio shack headquartered in fort worth).

unlike uk, however, fcc refused set single technical standard, each provider choose wished. selected telidon (now standardized naplps) majority decided use slight-modified versions of prestel hardware. startext used proprietary software developed @ star-telegram. rolled out across country 1982 1984, of services died , none, except startext, remained after 2 years. startext remained in operation until late 1990s, when moved web.

the primary problem systems slow, operating on 300 baud modems connected large minicomputers. after waiting several seconds data sent, users had scroll , down view articles. searching , indexing not provided, users had download long lists of titles before download article itself. furthermore, of same information available in easy-to-use tv format on air, or in general reference books @ local library, , didn t tie phone line. unlike ceefax system signal available free in every tv, many u.s. systems cost hundreds of dollars install, plus monthly fees of $30 or more.

in fact, successful online services of period not videotex services @ all. despite promises videotex appeal mass market, videotex services comfortably out-distanced dow jones news/retrieval (begun in 1973), compuserve , (somewhat further behind) source, both begun in 1979. none videotex services, nor did use fixed frame-by-frame videotex model content. instead 3 used search functions , text interfaces deliver files part plain ascii. other ascii-based services became popular included delphi (launched in 1983) , genie (launched in 1985).

nevertheless, naplps-based services developed several other joint partnerships between 1983 , 1987. these included:

viewtron, joint venture of knight-ridder , at&t
gateway, service in southern california joint venture of times mirror , infomart of canada
keyfax, service in chicago field enterprises , centel
covidea, based in new york, set at&t , chemical bank, time inc. , bank of america
grassroots canada infomart, toronto
teleguide, kiosk-based service emphasizing tourist information in toronto infomart, , in san francisco chronicle, in phoenix arizona republic , in las vegas las vegas sun.

a joint venture of at&t-cbs completed moderately successful trial of videotex use in homes of ridgewood, new jersey leveraging technology developed @ bell labs. after trial in ridgewood att & cbs parted company. subsequently cbs partnered ibm , sears, roebuck, , company form trintex in circa 1985 began offer service called prodigy, used naplps send information users, right until turned internet service provider in late 1990s. because of relatively late debut, prodigy able skip intermediate step of persuading american consumers attach proprietary boxes televisions; among earliest proponents of computer-based videotex.

naplps-based systems (teleguide) used interactive mall directory system in various locations, including world s largest indoor mall, west edmonton mall (1985) , toronto eaton center. used interactive multipoint audio-graphic educational teleconferencing system (1987) predated today s shared interactive whiteboard systems such used blackboard , desire2learn.

videotex technology adopted use internally within organizations. digital equipment corp (dec) offered videotex product (vtx) on vax system. goldman sachs, one, adopted , developed internal fixed income information distribution , bond sales system based on dev vtx. internal systems overtaken external vendors, notably bloomberg, offered additional benefit of providing information different firms , allowing interactive communication between firms.

australia

australia s national public videotex service, viatel, launched telecom australia on 28 february 1985. based on british prestel service. service later renamed discovery 40, in reference 40 column screen format, distinguish telecom service, discovery 80.the viatel system had rapid take in first year due efforts of gec manager terry crews , pioneering work on home banking commonwealth bank.

new zealand

a private service known taaris (travel agents association reservation , information service) launched in new zealand in 1985 travel agents association of new zealand icl computers. service used icl s proprietary bulletin software based on prestel standard provided many additional facilities such ability run additional software specific applications. supported proprietary email service.

the netherlands

in netherlands state-owned phone company ptt (now kpn) operated 2 platforms: viditel , videotex nederland. user perspective main difference between these systems viditel used standard dial-in phone numbers videotex used premium-rate telephone numbers. viditel needed (paid) subscription , on top of paid each page visited. videotex services didn t need subscription nor there need authenticate: paid services via premium rate of modem-connection based on connection time, regardless of pages or services retrieved.

from information-provider point of view there huge differences between viditel , videotex: via viditel data stored on central computer(s) owned , managed kpn: update information in system connected viditel computer , via terminal-emulation application edit information.

but when using videotex information on computer-platform owned , managed information-provider. videotex system connected end-user datanet 1 line of information-provider. information provider if access-point (the box directly behind telephone line) supported videotex protocol or transparent connection host handled protocol.

as said videotex nederland services offered access via several primary rate numbers , information/service provider choose costs accessing service. depending on number used, tariff vary ƒ 0,00 ƒ 1,00 dutch guilders (which between €0.00 , €0.45 euro) per minute.

besides these public available services, without authentication, there several private services using same infrastructure using own access-phone numbers , dedicated access-points. these services weren t public had log infrastructure. largest private networks travelnet information , booking-system travel industry , rdwnet set automobile trade register outcome of mot tests agency officially issued test-report. later additional services branch added such service readings of odometer registered each time car brought in service. part of nationale autopas service , available via internet

the network of videotex nederland offered direct access services of french minitel system.

ireland

a version of french minitel system introduced ireland eircom (then called telecom Éireann) in 1988. system based on french model , irish services accessible france via code 3619 irlande. number of major irish businesses came offer range of online services, including directory information, shopping, banking, hotel reservations, airline reservations, news, weather , information services. wasn t centralised service , individual service providers connect via eirpac packet switching network. connect databases on other networks such french minitel services, european databases , university systems. system first platform in ireland offer users access e-mail outside of corporate setting. despite being cutting edge time, system failed capture large market , withdrawn due lack of commercial interest. rise of internet , other global online services in mid-1990s played major factor in death of irish minitel. minitel ireland s terminals technically identical french counterparts, except had qwerty keyboard , rj-11 telephone jack standard telephone connector in ireland. terminals rented 5.00 irish pounds (6.35 euro) per month or purchased 250.00 irish pounds (317.43 euro) in 1992.

minitel

with french minitel system, unlike other service, users given entire custom designed terminal free. deliberate move on part of france telecom, reasoned cheaper in long run give away free terminals , teach customers how telephone listings on terminal, instead of continuing print , ship millions of phone books each year.

once network in place, commercial services started sprout up, becoming popular in mid-1980s. 1990 tens of millions of terminals in use. prestel, minitel used asymmetric modem (1200-bit/s downloading information terminal , 75-bit/s back).

alex

an alex terminal.

bell canada introduced minitel quebec alex in 1988, , ontario 2 years later. available both standalone crt terminal (very similar in design adm-3a) 1200-bit/s modem, , software-only ms dos computers. system received enthusiastically free two-month introductory period, fizzled within 2 years. online fees high, , useful services such home banking, restaurant reservations, , news feeds, bell canada advertised did not materialise; within short time majority of content on alex of poor quality or expensive chat lines. alex terminals did double duty connecting text-only bbses.

minitel in brazil

a successful system started in são paulo, brazil, state-owned telesp (telecomunicações de são paulo). called videotexto , operated 1982 mid-nineties; few other state telephone companies followed telesp s lead, each state kept standalone databases , services. key success phone company offered service , phone subscriber databases , third parties—banks, database providers, newspapers—offered additional content , services. system peaked @ 70 thousand subscribers around 1995.

south africa

beltel launched telkom in mid-eighties , continued until 1999.