Welcome
Welcome to viewdata.org.uk.It's over 30 years since the GPO launched Prestel on the unsuspecting public. Over the fifteen or so years of it's existence, it became everything that the Internet is today, and spawned an entire industry of competing and complimentary services, plus more than a few hobby based systems, not to mention a multitude of companies dedicated to supporting those publishing or using the services. For the most part, outside some specialist applications, these have all now disappeared without trace. Our aim here is to celebrate this industry, and not let what was a revolutionary concept be totally forgotten.
We're especially disappointed that there was no celebration of the 30th anniversary; apparently nobody cares any more about such an important milestone in the history of "being on-line". We appreciate that many people will consider Viewdata to have been a dead-end technology, but it laid the groundwork for much of what was to come. Would the UK have become such a major player in the provision of on-line services were it not for the experience already gained by many companies in running consumer-facing online services? Who knows, but it must have had an impact.
On viewdata.org.uk, we celebrate all aspects of Viewdata in the UK, and beyond. Obviously we're concentrating on it's heyday of the 1980s, however that doesn't stop us from covering current systems too!
We have screenshots, brochures, memories and stories, downloads, and even interactive access to demonstrations. We plan access to systems that are still running, and emulations of past services.
We've got examples from commercial systems (Prestel being the biggest) and from non-commercial and hobbyist systems; we're not fussy! We would especially like to add information from systems which were not generally publicly accessible, as those are the services most likely to have vanished without trace.
Contribute
Please feel free to contribute anything you have! If you were an IP on Prestel or elsewhere, and have a copy of your pages from the time, we're able to republish them in an interactive format. Individual screenshots are still welcome, of course, as are brochures and other documents. Old backup tapes of entire systems would be especially welcome, however we're also very interested in publishing your memories and experiences of being involved with, or just using, viewdata systems. To write privately, the contact page gives our details, or you may wish to contribute to our forum where you can reminisce in public.We're happy to exchange links with other relevant websites! Just Contact us with the details!
Latest News
7th March 2010 Rob Thanks to Chris forthe scans - two updates to the Prestel Brochures page - a 1990 tariff, and a brochure for Shades, a MUG !
5th March 2010 Rob For your entertainment, we have the second issue of Logon: The Micronet Members Magazine. Among others, this has an interview with Micromouse in it!
4th March 2010 Rob Today you can visit another small segment of Micronet - this time The Midnight Micronetters Club. Happy Browsing!
2nd March 2010 Rob Today we have possibly the largest addition to the site so far. The Dwarfen Realm was a viewdata BBS that ran until late 1990. It's only a brief page about it, but we have the entire service available for you to browse! No routes to nowhere in THIS database! Thanks, Peter, for letting me put it back online!
2nd March 2010 Rob In other news, I've re-jigged the scripts that handle the screen displays so that they don't use an "iframe" any more when viewing frames as text. This should make absolutely no difference to what us humans see, but should make the site much more friendly to the search engines. If you run across any glitches, please Contact me!
2nd March 2010 Rob Today we have two updates relating to The Silicon Village. We've got the New Residents Handbook for you (Thanks David for the scan!) and a copy of one of the special interest groups, Forcefield Direct - All the news for the latest 1993 consoles! Thanks, Ant!
1st March 2010 Rob Two little updates for you today. (Yes I know it's the second update dated today - the one below was only just after midnight this morning!) A 1990 magazine article about the closure of Micronet's chatlines, and, for the stamp collectors among you, the 1982 First Day Cover with stamps celebrating Prestel as a feat of British Technology! Excellent! Thanks David!
1st March 2010 Rob Added a 1990 Micronet brochure and the 1991 letter informing us of their closure.. Thanks David and Ant.
27th February 2010 Rob These have been up on YouTube for some time, but thanks to Ant for finding them: An original Prestel TV advert, and a couple of demonstrations snipped from TV programmes. Find them on the new Videos page.
26th February 2010 Rob Anybody in Birmingham remember Club 403? An innovative service, this was! Read all about it..
25th February 2010 Rob Added a few more screenshots to the British Rail section. Check your timetables!
25th February 2010 Rob Lots of stuff going on behind the scenes, but today we have another interactive offering for you - the actual TMMC/Micronet Virgin Users' pages, explaining how to use the system! Thanks, Ant!
20th February 2010 Rob A new article about a service many of you will never have heard of. Silicon Village aimed to take over the niche left by Micronet, but it didn't quite succeed. See it now, with full interactive access to their 1993 demonstration database!
18th February 2010 Rob Four more issues of Log On, the Micronet magazine. Thanks to Ant for scanning and sending these!
17th February 2010 Rob An update worth waiting for? Thanks, Ant, for the data files. Our first interactive viewdata database - From 1989, access the Micronet 800 demonstration right here in your browser.
16th February 2010 Rob Apparently the ZX81 modem did appear eventually. Thanks Ant!
14th February 2010 Rob Added a letter from Micronet about using the ZX81 to connect up (I don't think this ever materialised), ditto for the BBC Micro (these did) and a letter about the launch of Prestel Microcomputing. Also on the brochure page.
13th February 2010 Rob Added a rarity - a pre-launch Micronet brochure and cover letter.
13th February 2010 Rob Finished my tinkering with the gallery sofware. You can now navigate about a gallery when looking at the full size or text versions.
11th February 2010 Rob No new content, but I've been tinkering with the gallery scripts. The screenshot pages should look a lot nicer and more in touch with the site style now. I'll try and transfer the original gallery pages to the new format now later.
7th February 2010 Rob Added a brochure and associated leaflets and newsletter about Prestel Travel. There's a lot of detail on how Prestel actually works in this one: I'm not sure if the brochure was aimed at Travel Agents or the holiday operators' IT departments! It seems to switch from one level to the other. I've added the newsletter to the Ephemera page too.
6th February 2010 Rob Two more issues, April and July 1986, of Prestel Offline added. The April one also has a newsletter from Micronet 800 included. See how popular the chatlines were..
5th February 2010 Rob Slight tinkering with categories. I've added a "Hobby Systems" category, within which I can list multiple BBSs, rather than each having their own category. Only the commercial or major services will have a category of their own now. I think this will allow me to cover more systems without cluttering up the menu too much.
3rd February 2010 Rob Added two information packs from PVS suppliers in the 1980s, Datasolve and Metrotel.
2nd February 2010 Rob In a break from browsing my old floppies (loads more screens from Prestel to go through..) I've scanned and added a triplet of newsletters, creating a new page Ephemera for these and other similar items to appear on. Also, a little tidying up and re-writing of some pages.
31st January 2010 Rob A totally unexpected find today, which I just had to put up immediately. Viewdata graphics at their best. Head on over and read a Classic Dickens Tale
30th January 2010 Rob Yet more screenshots added to the Prestel Gallery page. This time the subject is "Prestel Mailbox".
29th January 2010 Rob A whole new page of screenshots added to the Prestel Gallery page. This uses the new software, so should be accessible to text-only viewers and screen reader users.
29th January 2010 Rob Virus outbreak, sorry about that. Hopefully all clear now.
28th January 2010 Rob Well what do you know? I found an actual screen from Bextel! It's not very exciting, but it gave me the opportunity to try out the new Gallery software. Take a look.
10th January 2010 Rob Yes I know it's been quiet. Added a factframe to Prestel gallery. I've also been looking hard to find anyone with any remaining copies of the original Prestel system software or database, but it seems that nowhere I've tried that has answered me has anything any more.
5th October 2009 Rob Added a magazine article about the launch of Micronet 800.
4th October 2009 Rob Added some information about Bextel, Bexley's 1986 PVS service. Previously, added placeholder for ccl4, and have made space for Haven and Heaven; still need to add content for those.
27th September 2009 Rob Here's an interesting one - the Prestel "Becoming an Information Provider" pack. See how much it cost to be an online pioneer in 1983..
25th September 2009 Rob Added a List of Prestel Information Providers.
24th September 2009 Rob Several new screenshots up in the Prestel section, including the first couple of several non-public pages!
23rd September 2009 Rob Following several weeks of downtime caused by a hardware failure at my webhost, we have now moved to a new, larger and hopefully more reliable hosting provider. I'll get back on track with the updates shortly.
21st August 2009 Rob Another Micronet 800 brochure upped.. sorry I'm slowing down!
11th August 2009 Rob Micronet 800 brochure up now. Not perfect, but we're getting better! Also re-created the 1979 Prestel PDF and it's a lot better now.
10th August 2009 Rob Been playing with some new software. So, there's now a 1982 Prestel Brochure scanned, OCRd, proofed, and uploaded.
8th August 2009 Rob Many minor edits. Contact form now working.
6th August 2009 Rob First brochure scanned and uploaded.
3rd August 2009 Rob CMS Implemented and first content uploaded.
13th July 2009 Rob Viewdata.org.uk domain registered.
Website by irrelevant.
Terminal image by Dan Farrimond used under creative commons licence.