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Prestel
Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maximum of 90,000 subscribers in the UK and was eventually sold by BT in 1994. The technology was a forerunner of on-line services today. Instead of a computer, a television set connected to a dedicated terminal was used to receive information from a remote database via a telephone line, although a computer with a modem and running Terminal emulator software can be used if the user so inclined. The service offered thousands of pages ranging from consumer information to financial data but with limited graphics. Initial development Prestel was created based on the work of Samuel Fedida at what was then known as the Post Office Research Station in Martlesham, Suffolk. In 1978, under the management of David Wood the software was developed by a tea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Videotex
Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal. In a strict definition, videotex is any system that provides interactive content and displays it on a video monitor such as a television, typically using modems to send data in both directions. A close relative is teletext, which sends data in one direction only, typically encoded in a television signal. All such systems are occasionally referred to as ''viewdata''. Unlike the modern Internet, traditional videotex services were highly centralized. Videotex in its broader definition can be used to refer to any such service, including teletext, the Internet, bulletin board systems, online service providers, and even the arrival/departure displays at an airport. This usage is no longe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Videotex
Videotex (or interactive videotex) was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal. In a strict definition, videotex is any system that provides interactive content and displays it on a video monitor such as a television, typically using modems to send data in both directions. A close relative is teletext, which sends data in one direction only, typically encoded in a television signal. All such systems are occasionally referred to as ''viewdata''. Unlike the modern Internet, traditional videotex services were highly centralized. Videotex in its broader definition can be used to refer to any such service, including teletext, the Internet, bulletin board systems, online service providers, and even the arrival/departure displays at an airport. This usage is no longe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Fedida
Samuel Fedida, OBE (4 May 1918 – 2007) was an Egyptian-born British telecommunication engineer responsible at Post Office Telecommunications for the development of Viewdata. Fedida was born in Alexandria, Egypt. He had the idea for Viewdata in 1968 after reading a publication with the title ''The Computer as Communications Device''. The first prototype became operational in 1974. In 1977 the system was introduced in the United Kingdom. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1980 Birthday Honours The Queen's Birthday Honours 1980 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The appointments were made to celebrate .... The book Viewdata Revolution authored by Mr Fedida and Mr Rex Malik, ISBN 0852272146, was published in 1979, and is listed in the main catalogue of The British Library. References Sources * * * * * * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Micro
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability, and the quality of its operating system. An accompanying 1982 television series, ''The Computer Programme'', featuring Chris Serle learning to use the machine, was broadcast on BBC2. After the Literacy Project's call for bids for a computer to accompany the TV programmes and literature, Acorn won the contract with the ''Proton'', a successor of its Atom computer prototyped at short notice. Renamed the BBC Micro, the system was adopted by most schools in the United Kingdom, changing Acorn's fortunes. It was also successful as a home computer in the UK, despite its high cost. Acorn later employed the machine to simulate and develop the ARM architecture. While nine models ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viewdata
Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel, request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate channel. Samuel Fedida, who had the idea for Viewdata in 1968, was credited as inventor of the system which was developed while working for the British Post Office which was the operator of the national telephone system. The first prototype became operational in 1974. The access, request and reception are usually via common carrier broadcast channels. This is in contrast with teletext. Technology Viewdata offered a display of 40×24 characters, based on ISO 646 (IRV IA5) – 7 bits with no accented characters.http://aei.pitt.edu/94572/1/videotex.pdf Originally Viewdata was accessed with a special purpose terminal (or emulation software) and a modem running at ITU-T V.23 speed (1,200 bit/s down, 75 bit/s up). By 2004 it was normally accesse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CEPT3
CEPT Recommendation T/CD 06-01 was a standard set in 1981 by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT) for the display of Videotex; specifically, for the ''Videotex Presentation Layer Data Syntax''. It was revised a number of times in the 1980s, and also later redesignated as recommendation T/TE 06-01. The standard aimed to bring a degree of harmonisation between Europe's emerging videotex systems, which had been diverging along national lines. It recognised four baseline profiles (with conformance criteria set out in Annex C) based on existing videotex services: * CEPT1: BTX (Germany) * CEPT2: Teletel (France) * CEPT3: Prestel (UK) * CEPT4: Prestel Plus (Sweden) and defined criteria for a "harmonised enhanced" service. National videotex services were encouraged to either follow one of the existing four basic profiles; or if they extended them, to do so in ways compatible with the harmonised enhanced specification. Responsibility for the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ceefax
Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST (11:32 PM BST) on 23 October 2012, in line with the digital switchover being completed in Northern Ireland.Pete Clifton Points of View 9 November 2008Test Cards and Ceefax BBC Archive To receive a desired page of text on a teletext-capable receiver, the user would enter a three-digit page number on the device. Once the page number was entered, the selected page would display on the user's screen upon its actual transmission, which would have required a wait of several seconds. There were many pages to choose from and they could be displayed either on a bl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Office Research Station
The Post Office Research Station was first established as a separate section of the General Post Office in 1909. In 1921, the Research Station moved to Dollis Hill, north west London, initially in ex-army huts. The main permanent buildings at Dollis Hill were opened in 1933 by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald. In 1968 it was announced that the station would be relocated to a new centre to be built at Martlesham Heath in Suffolk. This was formally opened on 21 November 1975 by Queen Elizabeth and is today known as Adastral Park. The old Dollis Hill site was released for housing, with the main building converted into a block of luxury flats and an access road named Flowers Close, in honour of Tommy Flowers. Much of the rest of the site contains affordable housing administered by Network Housing. Paddock, a World War II concrete two-level underground bunker, was built in secret in 1939 as an alternative Cabinet War Room underneath a corner of the Dollis Hill site. Its surface ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Office Telecommunications
Post Office Telecommunications was set up as a separate department of the UK Post Office, in October 1969. The Post Office Act 1969 was passed to provide for greater efficiency in post and telephone services; rather than run a range of services, each organisation would be able to focus on their respective service, with dedicated management. By law, the Post Office had the exclusive right to operate the UK national telecom network, (although since 1914 had licensed Hull City Council to operate its own local telephone network, Kingston Communications) and limited ability to license other providers' services and equipment. The National Telephone Company controlled most of telephony in Britain before the 1880 ruling on the Telegraph Act 1869 mandated a nationalised service – which was instated in 1911. The 1869 Telegraph Act granted this monopoly over communications and it was confirmed in 1880 that this Act included telephony even though the telephone had not been invented when the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Control Characters
In computing and telecommunication, a control character or non-printing character (NPC) is a code point (a number) in a character set, that does not represent a written symbol. They are used as in-band signaling to cause effects other than the addition of a symbol to the text. All other characters are mainly printing, printable, or graphic characters, except perhaps for the "space" character (see ASCII printable characters). History Procedural signs in Morse code are a form of control character. A form of control characters were introduced in the 1870 Baudot code: NUL and DEL. The 1901 Murray code added the carriage return (CR) and line feed (LF), and other versions of the Baudot code included other control characters. The bell character (BEL), which rang a bell to alert operators, was also an early teletype control character. Control characters have also been called "format effectors". In ASCII There were quite a few control characters defined (33 in ASCII, and the ECM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
