Samuel Fedida, OBE (4 May 1918 – 2007) was an Egyptian-born British telecommunication engineer responsible at

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, ...

for the development of

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 c ...

. Fedida was born in

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, 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 The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. He was appointed an Officer of the

Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established ...

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.

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* * * * * * * * * 1918 births 2007 deaths British computer scientists 20th-century British inventors British telecommunications engineers British Telecom people History of computing in the United Kingdom History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom Officers of the Order of the British Empire Date of death missing Place of death missing People from Alexandria Egyptian emigrants to the United Kingdom Egyptian Jews {{UK-engineer-stub