VideoText

From: Glenn Roberts <groberts_at_mitre.org>
Date: Wed Jun 11 12:23:51 1997

>>Somewhere in the back of my head I had the idea that a TDP-100
>>was a Coco ... that Radio Shack could sell it as a color
>>video terminal.
>>
>They did sell a "VideoTex" terminal that sure looked like a coco. Sold it
>for use with CompuServe, (among others,) as I recall.

there are surely some in this crowd who remember the excitement over
VideoText back in the early 80's. this was a way to mix text and low
quality graphics for display on a TV quality crt, combined with two-way
telephone linkage. there was even a standard for it (at least in the US)
called NAPLPS. this was going to be *the* way we would do everything from
getting the weather report to shoppping for groceries. it never became
commercially viable in the US. The excitement that drove this was a vision
in people's minds of what we now know (of course) as the world wide web.
it was an idea ahead of its time.

- glenn


+=========================================================+
| Glenn F. Roberts, Falls Church, VA
| Comments are my own and not the opinion of my employer
| groberts_at_mitre.org
Received on Wed Jun 11 1997 - 12:23:51 BST