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Viewdata was the generic name for the 'new information service from the British Post Office' which was marketed as Prestel. |
Pilot trials of Viewdata began in January 1976 as the Post Office prepared to enter the new information age, with the delivery of interactive teletext pages to the home and business user, via a normal telephone line.
Viewdata from the British Post Office
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Post Office Viewdata brings together two familiar pieces of domestic equipment, the telephone and the television set linked to provide an exciting new dimension in communications.
Viewdata is a new two-way information service proposed by the Post Office and designed to serve the general public as well as the business community. It provides for immediate access to a store of useful information via an adapted domestic TV receiver and a telephone line. It is very simple to operate, using a numeric hand-held keypad to select information displayed on the screen.
Instant access
Viewdata can give the busy executive instant access to stock market prices or it can help a domestic user to plan, in his own home anything from his next summer holiday to today's evening meal.
Current plans
The Post Office has been running a Pilot Trial since January 1976 which has enabled both the TV set manufacturers and the information industry to experiment and gain experience of this new form of communication. The next important stage will be a Market Trial due to commence in about mid-1978 where some 1000 users drawn from domestic and business sectors located in London, Birmingham & Norwich will be invited to take part in a small scale service. They will be able to access the Viewdata Centre (holding 60,000 'pages' of information) by acquiring specially developed TV sets costing rather more than a standard colour TV receiver. Their reaction both to the facilities and to the charges for usage will be studied in order to gauge whether a public service is likely to prove successful. Given a satisfactory result it is possible that a public service could be implemented by the early 1980s.
Early literature used the generic name of Viewdata, but later material used the brand name of Prestel...
Prestel - The Post Office Viewdata Service
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Prestel was the marketing and brand name of the Post Office's Viewdata service. The name was probably a shortening of 'press and tell' as the user had to press buttons to select information. |
At launch, circa 1980, Prestel modems were connected to the telephone network via a 'Jack 96A' with a round plug much like the 'Plan 4' telephone sockets of the era. PST (Plug Socket Telephone) jacks weren't available until a few years later!
Prestel modems were approved attachments to the network, as specified in 'List 3'; part of the Sales Offices' stringent checking processes of the time, as liberalisation of telecoms' equipment was only just emerging.
Charges (Oct 1980)
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The Post Office/BT Prestel service closed in 1994.
Prestel: The Visa Business Receiver
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"The Visa is the first PO supplied and maintained business receiver to enter the viewdata set market. The proprietary, mains operated receiver has been modified to receive Prestel only. As a result TV and the teletext services (Ceefax and Oracle) are not available." |
Micronet 800 pages were targeted at home micro (computer) users who were accessing Prestel via their (early) personal computers. The Bank of Scotland offered Home Banking to its customers as the computing revolution gathered pace...
Links
See www.viewdata.org.uk/ for an in-depth study of the service offerings.
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