History Telidon

1 history

1.1 genesis
1.2 telidon development
1.3 public testing
1.4 telidon becomes naplps
1.5 commercial efforts
1.6 problems
1.7 telidon disappears
1.8 legacy

history
genesis

herb bown considered father of telidon. bown had been working in computer graphics field since late 1960s, using plotters later moving video systems. starting in 1970, bown , team @ crc started working on picture description instruction (pdi) format encode vector graphics information. interpreter, interactive graphics programming language (igpl), read pdi codes , rasterized them display. time team consisted of bown, doug o brien, bill sawchuck, j.r. storey , bob warburton.

as work continued, team decided locking system particular hardware using not appropriate, , started modifying pdi system based on alpha-numeric codes instead of binary numbers. major advantage approach data can sent on common communications channels instead of relying on 8-bit clean link host computer. in 1975 crc contracted norpak develop interactive color display terminal based on new alpha-numeric pdi. crc had patented several of technologies end of 1977; touch-sensitive input mechanism, basic graphics system, , interactive graphics programming language.

by mid-1970s several european countries in process of introducing videotex , teletext services. there considerable interest within industry, , in media, suggesting online services next big thing . comments effect within next few decades, people may able access of published information in world living rooms using videotex, common in trade press.

the crc able interest department of communications (doc), superiors within federal government, fund development of system basis videotex service. unlike systems being developed in europe , in japan, canadian system offer high-quality 2d graphics, higher-speed, , used one-way fixed or menued displays (teletext), two-way systems based on modems (videotex), or combine two, allowing information sent customer in video signal, , returned via modem.

telidon development

on 15 august 1978, doc (whose technical side part of industry canada) held press conference , formally announced telidon project public, demonstrating large video display sending information minicomputer controlling on acoustic coupler modem. outlined four-year development plan included funding further technical development @ crc, production of several hundred terminals lent out industry development studies, funds marketing , lobbying in videotex standards negotiations.

in 1979 doc formed canadian videotex consultative committee advise minister on ways commercialize crc s work, , develop videotext services within canada. committee held 4 meetings during initial four-year development plan, , coordinated number of field trials broadcasters, telephone companies, cable television firms, manufacturers , various information providers. during same period, task force on service public given job of using telidon way provide public access government information , services.

by late 1979 norpak had developed version of telidon decoder housed in box size of modern digital cable set top box. menu selection keyset, size , shape of contemporary calculator, connected using ribbon cable. hardware in place, crc started working telecommunications providers test system in production settings. many of major canadian carriers expressed strong interest, , number of test systems ready roll out 1980s. excitement high; 19 november 1981 issue of globe , mail quoted representative @ canadian computer show , conference in toronto claiming telidon may become commonly used telephone , have great social impact. not alone in predicting great things technology:

in radio broadcast in 1980, douglas parkhill, deputy minister of research @ doc outlined of potential uses, financial information, theatre reservations, ability pay , print out tickets system.

public testing

the release of norpac s telidon terminal led announcements broadcasters , news organizations rolling out test systems starting late year. however, variety of delays pushed of these programs 1980. race have first operational deployment won small town of south headingley, west of winnipeg, part of experimental system being deployed manitoba telephone system (mts), local cable operator.

named ida cates, manitoba s first woman telephone operator in 1880s, project ida part of wider rollout of advanced cable technologies mts had been planning since 1978 study ways use bandwidth capabilities of newer cable systems. services included telidon, cable telephony, pay tv service using outdoor converters (instead of set top boxes), , low-bandwidth backchannel data services gas , electrical billing , alarm services.

the telidon services formed part of project ida created infomart, toronto-based company set provide telidon content. hosted on 2 computers set in winnipeg , run mts, providing 4800 baud channel in-home terminals. scheduled january 1980, delays pushed mid-year. ida ran until 1981, when of services dropped , cables returned normal analog signals, although offshoot using optical cable carried out in elie, rotating terminals though many households in area.

ida followed several canadian companies starting similar projects. in 1980, tvontario, educational television channel run ontario government, set 45 terminals in toronto area. in april 1981, new brunswick telephone set system practically identical project ida full suite of services, somewhere between 20 , 100 terminals. same month, alberta government telephones started project vidon , smaller modem-based test in calgary area. month later, bell canada announced vista project in toronto , montreal, in partnership toronto star , southam press provide content. test expanded between 500 , 1000 terminals.

telidon generated interest outside canada well. major foreign sale made in july 1980 government of venezuela, set test system provide information on health, social , economic aid programs people moving caracas rural areas.

a number of u.s. companies expressed interest, , started plans own telidon-based teletext systems. 1978, at&t corporation , cbs had been experimenting idea of videotex service, , drawn towards telidon efforts. in 1982 introduced experimental system known venture 1 in ridgewood, new jersey, equipping homes stand-alone terminals at&t, , others set-top boxes. test ran 7 months 1982 83, , considered success, so at&t publicly announced plans introduce commercial system in 1984.

general motors epic project used special user access kiosks video-disk based motion video , sound integrated teldion data arriving data center in flint, michigan. kiosks distributed hundreds of shopping-malls , buick dealers in various states. users able leave addresses future contact, request car brochures or explore technical , visual data motion , sound see car models available. particular project single largest sale of telidon in north america , allowed users examine car models without speaking car salesperson.

telidon becomes naplps

at&t started standardization effort bell , doc. at&t contributed 2 major additions system; ability define own character sets, , ability wrap multiple graphics commands macro . former provided not or international characters, creation of small graphics sent low transmission cost, useful in roles graphics can arranged in grid, chessboard. later allowed programmers create commonly used graphical element, at&t logo instance, , save macro. graphic can re-created single instruction in page needed it.

the resulting system emerged in 1983 naplps, while transmission method encoded information vertical blank interrupt of tv signal became nabts standard. major articles in byte magazine introduced naplps system wider audience, spread on four-month period in february, march, april, , may 1983 issues. standard complete, u.s. teletext plans started moving forward. naplps ability draw complex graphics particularly interesting u.s. information vendors such compuserve, allowed them draw network or advertiser logos.

by point technical development of telidon complete, , portion of canadian government s involvement wound down in summer of 1983. further efforts aimed @ helping develop commercial marketplace telidon systems , content, running year.

commercial efforts

one of longest-lived telidon deployments project grassroots , follow-on services developed part of earlier project ida , run on machines in winnipeg. unlike ida, grassroots ran on geographically distributed modems instead of cable links , aimed @ farmers, providing weather reports, agrochemicals notices , other information, optional links live commodities pricing on various exchanges. prices high: in addition purchasing terminal there additional one-time $100 set-up fee, annual fee $150, , there $19.00/hr charge connect service, , $6.00/hr communications . nevertheless, grassroots grew system distributed 20,000 pages of information farmers created infomart. based in winnipeg, grassroots expanded serve alberta, saskatchewan, northern ontario, , in 1985, northern united states.

a major effort introduce telidon in public setting nabu network. unlike traditional telidon systems, nabu terminals complete home computers in own right, using zilog z80 cpu , running cp/m clone, booting , launching programs on cable modem. launched 100 programs, games, including personal finance packages , such, using telidon online banking , other consumer services. users bought hardware $950 , connected color television, accessing programs via cable $8 $10 per month. after official launch on ottawa cablevision in october 1983, nabu network introduced ottawa s skyline cablevision in 1984 , year later in sowa, japan, via collaboration between nabu , ascii corp. nabu machines used telidon online banking , other services.

a significant showcase telidon system set third general assembly of inuit circumpolar council, hosted in frobisher bay on baffin island in july 1983. database of information conference , services hosted teleglobe canada in toronto on novatex system, information translated english, french, danish, inuktitut, greenlandic, labradorian, inupiag, yupik , western arctic. sixteen telidon terminals, supplied microtel, located @ various sites in frobisher bay, additional terminals in vancouver, washington, d.c., copenhagen, anchorage, bethel, barrow, nuuk, other northern communities. communications provided bell canada, teleglobe, greenland telecommunications , danish post , telegraph.

the canadian government invested in telidon way of distributing graphical information. transport canada ran system called tabs installed terminals in many airports, pilots weather information , notams. statistics canada used telidon way distribute graphs , other information in cansim system using telichart software converted tables of data naplps commands. environment canada used telidon terminals produce video feeds broadcast on local cable feeds.

in toronto area, teleguide terminals common fixtures @ larger shopping malls, government buildings (e.g. scarborough civic centre) , notably toronto eaton centre. run london, ontario s cableshare, system relied on 8085-based microcomputer drove several naplps terminals fitted touch screens, communicating via datapac back-end database. system offered news, weather , sports information along shopping mall guides , coupons. rollouts announced in several other cities well.

the largest efforts made in united states. after venture 1 experiments in 1982/3, at&t decided not pursue videotex service of own, instead provide service , support other companies wanted to. cbs invested considerable capital in development of extravision service, included closed captioning , channel information along more traditional telidon information. affiliate stations insert own content streams, although high cost of systems needed made relatively rare.

at&t partnered knight-ridder newspapers form viewdata, holding company operated viewtron service. test marketed in florida in 1980, service expanded entire southern florida area 1983, , expanded of eastern seaboard. viewdata started news service, on time included more , more features. operated on modems in pure videotex format, able offer variety of two-way services including e-mail , bulletin boards. similar system gateway , run at&t , los angeles times.

in 1984 tribune media services (tms) , associated press operated cable television channel called ap news plus provided naplps-based news screens cable television subscribers in many u.s. cities. news pages created , edited tms staffers working on atex editing system in orlando, florida, , sent satellite naplps decoder devices located @ local cable television companies. images rendered locally, , sent out normal television signals customers. avoided need send entire channels of video on satellite affiliate stations, instead, small amount of data sent , allowed video re-created, less cost.

problems

test deployments demonstrated problems other teletext systems discovered: without enormous amount of content, viewer interest difficult maintain. while large telidon deployments might hold tens of thousands of pages, users able exhaust content in particular areas of interest, suggesting systems have contain hundreds of thousands of pages in order remain interesting longer periods. gordon thompson of bell-northern research put it, of excitement in expectation; reality quite disappointing.

most teletext systems, telidon included, created in context of broadcast model, content provided large vendors , pushed one-way user in fashion similar television or newspapers. interactivity limited menu selections or providing information on forms (like online banking). placed entire burden of creating content on service providers , partners, expensive , time-consuming process. since of content in question available on different media controlled same companies, teletext services had problem of competing incumbent mediums less expensive , better developed.

telidon expensive. when introduced doc expected terminals available $200 $300 1982, did not come be. largest suppliers of terminals electrohome, norpak , microtel, terminals ranged between $1,800 , $2,500. during development period hardware manufacturers felt demand drive down prices less $600, however, results trials indicated considered expensive mass market.

telidon disappears

by mid-1980s, home computers graphics capabilities similar telidon had come , gone, driving prices points far below simplest telidon terminal. second generation of machines apple macintosh, commodore amiga , atari st entering market capabilities telidon systems not match. @ same time, information services compuserve , source offering usable online experience telidon failed offer.

for of these reasons, interest in telidon, , videotex in general, faded. 1 reason issue of continued funding government hoped come private publishing companies such globe , mail, or toronto star candidates. during latter part of 1983 , 1984 of informart ceo dave carlisle s reign, private publishing corporations couldn t find suitable approach , resulted in d. carlisle s resignation severe impact on infomart, flagship of telidon in rough seas.

the government s funding of telidon efforts came official end on 31 march 1985, @ point $69 million had been spent not counting revenue expended infomart had made national , international sales in excess of $20m. estimated $200 million had been invested various industry partners, $100 million of bell canada. of test systems had ended runs 1982, while commercial systems persevered few years longer; nbc s system ended in january 1985, followed nabu in 1985/6, , extravision, viewtron , gateway in march 1986. in spite of these services finding level of consumer demand, none able find pricing structure paid operation while still being interesting consumer base.

telidon systems continued used one-way medium time. common use use telidon terminals produce video broadcast viewing close-circuit television signals conventional televisions, rather sending digital information terminals connected televisions. systems common informational displays in airports , other public areas, information displays cable tv stations.

legacy

rather failure of telidon promising technology or efforts made, telidon s seemingly slow international acceptance , north america s sluggishness in pushing higher level of functionality topic of considerable discussion , disappointment in canada, part of similar , wider conversation on entire concept of videotex took place in late 1980s , 1990s. many of telidon criticisms focused on role of government in development of systems, pushing technology no 1 wanted.

after of commercial efforts had ended, naplps received fresh breath of life basis of prodigy online service. in time between efforts viewtron , launch of prodigy in 1988, personal computers ability view naplps graphics ease had become common, , modem speeds had increased point data no longer overwhelming. after promising start, prodigy management invoked series of blunders upset customer base, , arrival of world wide web in mid-1990s killed off.

nabts, communications protocol embedding data in tv signal, saw continued use after telidon project ended. used closed captioning support, although not system available. used microsoft s webtv windows , intel s intercast. both used custom tuners, in form of plug-in cards pcs, captured information encoded vbi or entire tv channel.

for work on telidon, herb bown received order of canada , gold medal engineering excellence association of professional engineers of ontario. touche ross new perspectives award awarded herb bown , doug o brien. bown later formed idon corp develop interactive teaching materials.