Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |
Subject: Dead Media Working Note 02.4
Dead media: Canada's Telidon network; Australia's
"Viatel" and "Discovery 40"
From: geoffrey_AT_astral.magic.ca (Geoffrey Shea)
TELIDON
Dear Bruce,
For three years during the early 80's I was involved with
an artists' collective exploring the potential of Telidon,
the Canadian version of videotex (Minitel is France's
version). Graphical, on-line, "interactive," just a decade
ahead of its time, the whole thing didn't go very far.
Several artists did create tentative works and some of
these were included in an exhibition I curated with Paul
Petro at A Space, and another one I prepared with Tom
Sherman for some Venice Biennale, but which never got
shown due to the ever-present "technical difficulties."
The whole medium was far too technology-dependent.
Viewers had to use a dedicated decoder box and the
hardware manufacturers were the only ones who really
benefitted from these government-sponsored trials.
The artworks still exist on 8" floppies somewhere in a
filing cabinet, but as far as I know there is not an
existing operating decoder which can display them. (A
friend of mine, Norman White, has an extensive
computer museum of sorts with a couple of possibly
salvagable ones). Sure, some of the art is on slides,
etc., but the actual works in their crude "interactivity"
cannot be seen. Dead as a doornail, that medium is.
I'd be pleased to try and dig up more about the artists'
involvement with this short-lived medium if you are
interested. Probably by consulting with Bill Perry, one of
the main driving forces in the attempt to subvert this
government/industry initiative. Good luck with the
project.
Geoffrey Shea
VIATEL and DISCOVERY 40
From: avatar_AT_aus.xanadu.com (Andrew Pam)
The Australian Prestel system, licensed from Britain, was
originally named "Viatel" but was renamed to "Discovery
40" (alluding to the 40 column text, as opposed to their
newer 80-column ASCII service) last year.
Telecom Australia (now "Telstra") finally put the poor
thing out of its misery a couple of months ago. I can
refer you to some people who might be able to help you.
I used to work for a company called ProNet who were a
Viatel service provider, and I created a Unix toolkit for
developing Viatel applications. (It ran on a 386 under
SCO and manipulated the Prestel database on the mainframe
at the Telecom exchange over a 9600bps X.25 leased line).
I believe this was in 1993. ProNet also had a permanent
9600bps connection to AARNET, then the Australian
Internet. It was one of the last 9600bps connections left,
as AARNET was no longer offering permanent connections at
such a low speed.
Using this toolkit, I wrote software to telesoftware
encode binary files from the unix filesystem. I also
wrote an Internet email gateway and a service to post
Usenet newsgroups on the Viatel pages. This included
proper 40-column word wrapping, paragraph breaks at Viatel
pages where possible, alternating paragraphs between
yellow and white, and converting quoted portions of other
messages from the indented "> " format to green text.
My employer was Lachlan Arnott
and the job was brought to my attention by Craig Sanders
who had worked for Telecom. I'm
sure they could help you with more info.
Share and enjoy,
*** AVATAR ***
Andrew Pam
Dead
Media | 0.01-02.0 | 02.1-04.0
| 04.1-06.0 | 06.1-08.0 |
08.1-10.0 | 10.1-12.0 |