BPN 1741: 40 Years ago Dutch consumers learned about online services

Forty years ago, on September 5, 1978, the long march of online public services in the Netherlands began. The public television 8 o’clock news introduced Dutch viewers to online services for the first time. From the exhibition floor of a consumer electronics fair the television reporter introduced the new digital media, showing  Ceefax-like teletext information, transported by television waves, and a Prestel-like demonstration of viewdata*/videotex**, an interactive system by the telephone. With this historical report of 3:36 minutes, Dutch consumers got a first glimpse of a future with digital media.

The technologies demonstrated used the television screen as a delivery station. Although there were already computers, so-called mainframes and mini-computers, these were used in science, in financial services and in administration departments. And the PC had just been developed, but hadn't really reached the Netherlands yet. The publicity preceding the consumer fair therefore generated television-focused headlines such as 'Extra opportunities coming on television' and 'Besides television for watching, there will also be text television'. 

And as with all new services and products, prophecies about the benefits of these new media were made before and during the fair. Services would be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (24/7), with information and teleshopping, banking transactions would be handled the same day and school lessons and university lectures would be available at home. The new services would bring about a change in the daily life pattern of the Netherlands, where at that time no bakery was open on Sunday and no Sunday paper was for sale. 

Start of the long march

After the consumer fair, the long march of digital media was started by the state-owned companies as the public broadcaster NOS and the telecom operator PTT. On 1 April 1980, the NOS introduced the Teletekst, moulded after the UK Ceefax service, but of course in the Dutch language. Teletekst was only available during TV transmission hours. On 7 August 1980, the then State Secretary for Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Mrs Neelie Smit-Kroes, launched the first public 24/7 online service, Viditel. It was the second operational videotext service using UK Prestel software in Europe.

The two services have run different courses. Teletekst has been very successful up to the millennium. As many countries like the UK and Belgium have abandoned the teletext services, Teletekst is still operational in the Netherlands. The PTT service Viditel was less successful and was operational till 1989, when it was replaced by its successor Videotex Netherlands. This service worked with a different organisation and has multiple delivery devices (television, PC and Minitel). The service got a wider usage and had. A milestone was reached in 1994 with 250.000 users and 3 million connected minutes. However, Videotex Netherlands was overwhelmed by Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) on PC and  the introduction of the Internet. Videotex Netherlands was officially closed on January 1, 1997. 

Breakthrough

Consumers got a peek of internet with the launch of consumer services by XS4ALL on May 1, 1993. A real breakthrough came with the opening of The Digital City (De Digitale Stad, DDS) on January 15th 1994.This Amsterdam initiative drew much attention and subscribers to the service. After six weeks the service registered more than 10.000 users. DDS sparked commercial ISP competitor like Euronet*Internet, Planet Internet and World Online. Now after fourty years, the long march for online has reached the milestone of 98 percent of Dutch households online with internet via PC, telephone or tablet. 

*Viewdata was the generic term for interactive services with teletext-like screen presentation over the telephone, which was later replaced by videotex.
** For the demonstration, a link-up was made with the Waterloo computer of the British Post Office (BPO).

BPN 1740: Videotex: an e-phemeral medium

 Today marks the 38th anniversary of the launch of Dutch videotext service Viditel. This first, public, online information service, the first European follower of the UK service Prestel, was based on the videotex protocol. Looking back, Prestel was passé by 1994 with 90.000 subscribers at its height. The Dutch service Viditel had three successors and its successors and had eventually had a lifespan of 17 years. By 1994 both services were outnumbered by the Internet. Videotex was one of the first victims of the upcoming e-phemeral media trend.

The year 1980 was an important one for e-media in Holland. On April 1^st, 1980, the television text service NOS Teletekst was introduced and grew into a resounding success. Teletext still reaches millions of people in the Netherlands today, as opposed to most services in European countries.

On August 7th, 1980, the Viditel trial was launched by Secretary of State Ms Neelie Kroes. It was the first public online service with 500 subscribers, 150 information providers and 150,000 pages. This videotex service, which ran via the telecom network, grew like the Echternacht procession with two steps back and three forwards, but never became a widely accepted service. 

It soon became clear that the aim had to be a large-scale service, but even the cable experiment South Limburg and the VNU Amsterdam project Ditzitel did not bring about this growth. 

 

By refocusing on the French kiosque model and its marketing approach, Videotex Netherlands allowed the users' market to grow in its third attempt to introduce videotex. But also this attempt did not lead to the projected market size of 500,000 consumers and 220,000 small business users. From 1994 on, videotex was gradually overshadowed by the Internet. On 1 January 1997 videotex definitely disappeared from the Dutch online scene.

 

(The illustrations are part of Collection Jak Boumans) 

See also

- video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/wg74YRcv4Tc (commentary in Dutch language)
 

BPN 1724: First Dutch Digital City of 1994 will be resuscitated

There was a special session at the Amsterdam Museum, where a preview was given of the restoration of the site The Digital City (DDS). This historic site was the internet site that kicked the Dutch consumer on January 15, 1994 into the internet era. It was a project, based on the US free-nets, and started by the political-cultural center De Balie in Amsterdam and XS4ALL, the first consumer internet ISP. It was started at the beginning of the municipal elections  of spring 1994 and expanded the public media debate range from the local television, radio and print media to internet. The metaphor of a virtual city was chosen to emphasize the character of the public domain of DDS.  

First Dutch digital city
At first the information and communications services were presented in texts, but from October 15 onwards the interface became graphic. The organization received a grant from the city of Amsterdam to set up the site. The initiative received a lot of public attention on radio and television and in the press. Marleen Stikker was the  virtual mayor of DDS and the media spokesperson. And the initiative did receive a lot of attention. In fact thousands of potential online users were clamouring on the gates to get in and get a dial-up connection through DDS. After six weeks, the project already had more than ten thousand registered users. Not only internet provider XS4ALL was surprised by the interest, but also line provider PTT Telecom. 

Virtual experience 
The initial enthusiasm of DDS caused a rise and fall. DDS became an ISP, but eventually could not manage to stay in business and disappeared from the internet scene. The remains were buried with the other archives of Amsterdam Museum (the first Dutch museum to recognise digital heritage).  

Until he original files were found back in the Amsterdam Museum Archives. This led to the project ‘DDS resuscitated’ sponsored by he Amsterdam Museum, the Waag Society, University of Amsterdam and Sound and Vision. Computer science students from the University of Amsterdam and the Free University found a file of 10Mb on a hard drive. This drive had been stored for 20 years. The students restored the file in two versions: one with all data and one replicate. On June 30^th, these were demonstrated as DDS version 3.0. 
In the fall DDS version 4.0 will be shown. It will be an emulation completely programmed anew "to create a modern, stable and secure functioning site”. In this version users will be able to select an avatar and can move through the city from bar to post office and library using the subway. It will bring back some of the first feelings, experienced at the introduction of DDS. As one can still walk through Pompeii in Italy and experience the Roman city as it was, so users will also be able to visit and experience the first Dutch virtual city of 1994, complete with map and guide. 

10+ years back in time 
"DDS resuscitated' is a first web archeological project in The Netherlands, which offers a view of internet as it was between 1994 and 1996. It will allow users to look back a little over a decade. Hopefully the project is a first incentive for more online projects like the first online Dutch public service Viditel 1980. It would be great to recreate this service and make it available online. It could bring back the feeling of how users digested information through the Prestel based videotex system. Perhaps the former PTT museum, now named the Museum of Communication, or the successor of PTT Telecom still might have a few tapes in their archives.

BPN 1678: Celebrating public internet in The Netherlands

In the past week, there were celebrations in Holland in the framework of the introduction of public internet in 1994. The launch of De Digitale Stad (Digital City) on 15 January 1994 was commemorated. The event sparked off public internet in The Netherlands, which in less than three years registered one million internet users. Both events were celebrated, The Digital City in Amsterdam and public internet in The Hague. I was invited to speak at The Hague event.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam announced two happenings in the framework of the launch of the Digital City. The Waag Society and the archaeological department of the Digital City announced two meetings addressing the question: How free and open is internet yet? On January 15 the international campaign "The Internet is broken . Let's fix the internet.",  was joined.  This meeting was dealing with subjects as  secure and reliable Internet technology, the development of secure protocols, hardware and software NSA proof , designing user-friendly cryptography, supporting data protection legislation and the development of alternative social media and search engines . On January 16 , the results of the meeting "The Internet is broken. Let's fix the internet" were presented in the meeting Silent rough roadmap”.

The Hague

At the Museum for Communication there was an evening meeting, organized around the new permanent exhibition Muscom needs internet. There were three presentations.

Consumer internet

The first presentation dealt with 1994, the year in which consumer Internet made a breakthrough of consumer Internet in the Netherlands. From 1980 Dutch consumers could retrieve information through the online service Viditel and use a rudimentary e - mail service. Until January 1, 1997, this videotext service and its successor Videotex Nederland attracted 325,000 users who irregularly used the service. When the Digital City opened its doors in the context of the municipal elections in Amsterdam in 1994, internet was not only available for users in Amsterdam, but also available for  users from around the country. On March 23, 1994,  De Groene, a weekly, reported, that already 12,000 users were registered. And on January 1 1997, there were  1 million registered users in the Netherlands, using the services of several ISPs (Digital City, Euronet*Internet, Planet Internet and World Online). In 17 years videotext services had totalled 325.000 users, while internet tripled its users to 1 million in three years thanks to the disruptive technology of the Internet.

I also had an epilogue in my pocket, but I forgot to read it out in public. “Marshall McLuhan argued in his book Understanding Media (1974 ): A new medium is never an addition to the old media nor let the old media alone. The new medium does not stop with the pushing of older media until the new forms and positions have been found in the media landscape.

Online has started to conquer strategic positions in the media from 1970 onwards. Since the sixties online pioneers such Lickleder and Doug Engelbart saw a new world for themselves with electronic messaging services, video telephony, electronic ordering and shopping, electronic banking, electronic publishing and translation electronically. Almost all technical issues had been rudimentarily developed in the pre-Internet age.

But thanks to the internet a flywheel effect came into effect. There was a wide user base, and there was a great advancement in refining technology such as e-mail, icu, Skype, e-shopping, e-banking, digital publishing and translation. Now internet has already intervened in the technology and economics, but there  is still some teething to be done. Internet will dig deeper into everyday life, social customs and influencing lifestyle. Life as well as  the Museum for Communication needs internet.

Internet abstinence

The second speaker was Bram van Montfoort. This youngster has lived without internet for a year and has written a book about internet abstinence. He told about the trials and tribulations he has experienced in that year : no Internet and no Facebook. He noticed that he was struggling to enroll into college for a bachelor degree journalism. His responses to requests by letter were not immediate as with e-mail. And after a year in the monastery of analogue media thousands of emails awaited him. His experiences he shares via an analogue medium, the book Een jaar offline (A year offline).

It became clear that the pace of his life changed and that hand written letters became an art form again. I recognize the custom of writing letters. During my time in boarding school, but also during my studies, I wrote many a letter to my parents and friends, in which I told him what I had been through and what future ideals I was striving after. Those subject you will not see addressed in emails and FB postings.

The project Bram van Montfoort lasted for a year. There have been similar projects of internet abstinence previously, but they usually were shorter and of course in a different era and context. Jeroen van Loon, the third speaker, has spent two months without internet during his studies. He got RSI from internet and decided to ignore internet. In 2011, a college in Utrecht started a research project on internet abstinence for a week with sixteen people. They reported by video about their experiences and their " withdrawal symptoms". And in 1996, a number of Internet fanatics in Rotterdam had themselves locked up for a period of time. Public reports on the internet abstinence were published. Of course there are big differences between Internet users in 1996 and 2012. In 2012, Internet penetrated much more in the daily lives of people.

Muscom needs internet

Life on the needs internet project by Jeroen van Loon I wrote as once a posting, a project awarded in the European Youth Award (EYA). Meanwhile, the internet artist has collected more than 300 handwritten letters. This website of this collection now has a new design and is more accessible. Now users can look for letters by categories such as gender, age and region as well as categories such as leisure, online/offline and pre-internet. The letters tell the stories about their first experiences with internet by people worldwide. They cheer the ease of making social contacts, but also question big brother, while children indicate that they may sit behind the computer for a limited time. The Museum for Communication in The Hague has now made ​​a selection from this letter collection and putt eight letters on permanent display under the title Muscom needs internet. For the museum, this is a worthy entry into the world of Internet.

BPN 1650: Government becomes hacker

This morning I was on Dutch radio (program OVT of VPRO). Using a radio fragment as flash back in history on the subject of hacking, I was asked to comment. Exactly to date, 27 years ago, on July 28, 1986 two 17 years hacked the Dutch consumer system Viditel.

The two high school boys got into the system and were able to reach travel shops and banks. It was an innocent hack. These days sentences for hacks are high and persons behind Anonymous and Wikileaks are seen and treated as top criminals.

The interview was cut short by the actuality of the death of Barnaby Jack. This US hacker was a good guy, who loved to demonstrate how ATM spit out money at wish without using a card at hackers’ conventions. More recently he got involved in medical devices and and showed how sensitive these were. He was able to hack a pace maker and send 380 Volt through a virtual heart. He worked in computer security for companies like McAfee and IOActive.

 

Viditel

Barnaby Jack was only eight years old when the Viditel hack took place in the Netherlands 28 July 1986. Viditel was the first online consumer system which was launched in 1980 on 7 August by the Dutch PTT, copying the British Prestel system. It used a central computer , telephone line, telephone and adapted television set for sending and receiving information.

 

 

The Viditelcomputer was a GEC 408 2 with an internal memory of 384Kb and had six disc units of 70Mb, good for 60.000 videotex pages.  The system could serve 192 concurrent users (something a present ISP would be unable to serve his clients with).

In 1986 the Viditelsystem was hacked by two boys, 17 years old. The hack was reasonably simple, no rocket science, no logarythms. You just call up people who have Viditel, tell them that you are representatives of the Dutch PTT and ask them for their access codes and passwords. The trick is still used by people representing themselves as Microsoft representatives who want to help you speeding up your PC.

It was not the first time the Viditel system was being hacked. IN 1983 it had been already hacked from London by Hugo Cornwall, alias Peter Sommer, the author of Hacker’s Handbook published in 1985. Hugo Cornwall visited an exhibition at which Prestel and Viditel were demonstrated. By carefully checking the finger movements of the British Telecom employeer, he was able to figure out the access code and password. Before the end of the day Higo Cornwall had penetrated the Dutch system. In fact it was not too difficult to crack the system, as the operator send on passwords by fax for everyone to be seen.

Hacking in the eighties

Hacking started with getting into the telephone system. One of the persons who did dthis was Susan Headley in 1977. Hacking the telephone system was partly a sport, partly a way to avoid telephone ticks tobe paid. From 1980 onwards computers were the subjects of hacks. An early example was the breaking into a live television broadcast by the BBC about computers, during which a small poem was projected on the screen.

This incident was rather innocent, but by 1984 more tseps wer made. The Hamburg based Computer Chaos Club (CCC) hacked the BTX system, the German counterpart of Prestel and Viditel. The hackers succeeded to enter a bank’s system and put in a routine which generated an access from the bank’s account to a CCC page every three seconds. As the page had been valued on 10 DM the CCC made 134.000 DM (roughly 75.000 euro). The bank had claimed before that the system was absolutely safe to use. The CCC showed that the bank’s BTX system could ruin any customer. The next day after publication the money was returned to the bank.

In the UK Prince Phillip’s e-mail box on Telecom Gold was hacked. The hackers were able to detect the safelty level of the Prince and discovered that the password consisted of the code 1234.

In the Netherlands also computers were being hacked. Jan Jacobs, a free-lance journalist, made contact from his study at home with the Government’s Institute for Health and Environment, RIVM. Jacobs was able to look into confidential medical dossiers of patients and many other data. An amateur hacker had lended the access code and password to the journalist.  

In the same year two Delft students penetrated into the network of the PTT with 14 connected computers. Names of bad paying clients, secret numbers, but also telephone numbers of private people, companies and government institutions became public. The students, encouraged by Bob Herschberg, professor operating systems, did not have bad intentions and only were willing to show the leaks in the system. Soon after this hack the Dutch government started a commission to research cybercriminality.

Criminal hackers

By the end of the eighties things became more serious. Hacking became ambivalent. You had ethical hackers and criminal hackers. It was shown by a group of hackers who accessed computers of the US government and companies for access codes and passwords. Once they had these codes they started to sell them to the Russian KGB. This was seen by Germany and the USA as cybercriminality.

In the late eighties and the beginning of the nineties criminal hacking could not be prevented. Police statements on hacking still were type on old fashioned typing machines. Even now criminal hacking is difficult to prevent as so many parties, choices and mistakes are involved. The Dutch organisation for computing the public transport ticket organisation chose for a low level security. Within no time the system was cracked. Besdies you can secure a system, but theer are always people who will transfer their codes to complete strangers. In order to fight this habit you will have to start an awreness campaign.   

Government as hacker

Hacking computer was a playful business beginning 1980. But with the banking incident in Hamburg in 1984 and the cybers espionage in 1989, hacking was beyond innocence. Hacking was more difficult to discern into ethical and criminal hacking by the day.  And as government is using various information systems, data can be compared and systems linked with each other. As such the systems can be used to spy and check on citizens. Whistle blowers like Assange, Manning and Snowdon have demonstrated that governments are becoming hackers. This will put hacking into another and higher gear of the ethical dimension: criminal and political.

If you speak Dutch, listen to the interview.

BPN 1642: The Switch to Internet in The Netherlands (3)

Commercial online services and offline products

The year 1980 was a very prosperous year for the new media in The Netherlands as Kluwer commercialised its legal database and the Dutch PTT launched its videotex service under the name Viditel. Both services were the first commercial online services in The Netherlands. They grew slowly but also experienced a slowdown, when CD-ROM for textual and numerical databases was introduced. 

Database services
On April 1, 1980 Kluwer launched its legal database. Predictions were made about the number of its users. Kluwer knew the legal market for its print products and could make a cautious calculation. With 4000 lawyers distributed over 1200 offices, let alone the government officials, the prospects were good; certainly with the future lawyers who would use the assistance of a computer. Making it a profitable service was a long haul, but possible[i].

The launch of the Kluwer Legal Database, triggered the production of a number of databases. When in 1988 the first inventory of online databases, either originally produced or foreign online databases sold in The Netherlands, was produced, the amount came up to 60[ii]. Attempts were made to establish information services, nationally and internationally. In 1982 Building & Townplanning, started working in the construction sector; however the service went bankrupt in 1995. In the same year the publisher ICU started up the international information service Samsom Data Service with maritime databases MARNA and SHIPDES and other databases by Dutch and foreign information providers. The service was killed in 1984 due to the economic climate. In 1990 another attempt was made to start up a national information service  by merging the national governmental computer centre to be privatised RCC with the private database service IVEV, bringing governmental databases together with business databases such as marketing, environmental and news ones into the Informatiebank. But by 1994 the plug was pulled out due to the economic recession and the absence of a feeling about internet.

E-mail services

The ASCII information services usually had no e-mail service alongside. E-mail services were exploited as separate services. Computer companies like IBM and GEC had e-mail services, also for third parties such as Easylink and Low Cost Linking. The Dutch PTT also launched an e-mail service, based on Dialcom software. This service had e-mail software aboard, but also database software to store newsletters. The Dutch PTT experimented in 1984 with the service named Memocom within its own organisation and with journalists reporting from the European Soccer Championship. By 1987 commercial initiatives were developed such as a newsletters for Dutch people abroad, which was distributed by fax,  and a daily computer newsletter by VNU, following the example of its sister publication IDB Online in London .

Videotex figures

Viditel was launched on August 7, 1980. Before its launch the project manager Ruiten had already forecasted a 100.000 subscribers by 1985. Asked on what research this figure was based, he pointed to the figures for the German equivalent Bildschirmtext. This service was predicted to have 1 million users by 1985; given that the population of Germany was five times the population of The Netherlands, the amount of subscribers would be 200.000, yet he chose the safe side of 100.00. But with no market experience in the online field the figures turned out to be completely wrong. After the first experimental year only 3.000 subscribers had joined the service and 130 information providers were presenting their products and services on the service. The television manufacturers got blamed, the PTT blamed the information providers and the PTT was broadcasted too optimistic figures, while the press saw the service as one big advertisement board without distinctive content.

It was quite clear that a large scale base of subscribers had to be created by other technological infrastructures and trigger services such as the telephone directory. As The Netherlands was one of the densest cabled countries in Europe, a solution was sought in two-way cable.  A long-term experiment was created in the south of The Netherlands, the South-Limburg project, with the support of governments and VNU, but it failed miserably. A third attempt was made in 1988, which resulted in the service Videotex Nederland. Usually telecom technology as well as a hybrid technology (telephone line for commands and cable for information) were used, while users were not forced to take out subscription. The new marketing had some success; at its height in 1994 the amount of occasional users reached 350.000. But from that year onwards the user figures diminished.

CD-ROM

But also the online technologies got competition from CD-ROM from 1985 onwards. The silver disc turned out to be packaged bandwidth, an information carrier for textual and numerical databases with a low updating rate. Databases which had been online could now be exploited on a disc, which was cheaper than keeping them online. The Royal Tropical Institute distributed the agricultural database TROPAG online. But once CD-ROM was available it had an easier distribution worldwide on disc. And also Kluwer started to experiment with CD-ROM. The legal publisher saw possibilities to bring down the costs for the service by combining online for the timely updated information and the disc for the archived information. An April 1989 inventory of CD-ROMs produced in The Netherlands listed 27 productions[iii]. By 1997 CD-ROM had proven to be a packaged bandwidth solution and disappeared as a textual information carrier.

Professionalisation

By 1989 the new media had developed to a developing industry sector. Some 185 companies were full time active in new media and companies were specialising, amongst others in video and audio. Outlets for CD-ROMs were found through petrol stations and bookshops.  Around these firms other supply companies sprang up such as marketing and conference companies. Also education picked up new media; in 1988 the first course interactive media designer was started at an applied university. And insight into the industry sector and its revenue capacity came from the first marketing research exercises; by 1994 the turnover of the new media industry sector, exclusively of internet, was 360 million guilders ( 175 million euro).

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[i][i] Boumans, Jak (1982): Geen eind aan boeken – wel aan het zoeken. Boekblad 7/5/1982

[ii] Boumans, J.M. and C.N.A. Molenaar (1988): Marketing Informatie Systemen en Elektronische Informatie Bestanden. Self-publishing.

[iii] NVI/Electronic Media Reporting (1989), Lijst van optische media projekten. NVI.


Instalment 4: The sudden silent internet switch

BPN 1641: The Switch to Internet in The Netherlands (2)

Life before internet

It is surprising to notice that Dutch internet nomads think that before internet there was waste land as far as online is concerned. The memorial book at the occasion of the academic network SURFnet start its introduction, saying that The Netherlands was barren as far as networks was concerned before the introduction of the academic network [ii].  However, almost a history of more than twenty years of online activity has been forgotten either by the absence of the knowledge or by very selective perception of history.

The beginning of new media in 1967 in The Netherlands has been pinned down to the start of a study to use a computer in the editorial process of the international, scientific publishing house, Excerpta Medica, initiated by Dr Pierre Vinken (photograph: 3rd person from the left), a neurologist and later CEO of Reed-Elsevier. The editorial staff of Excerpta Medica abstracted articles and published them per medical discipline in magazines, provided with keywords, which were fitted in a hierarchical keyword system on cards, a thesaurus. The computer was seen as an assistant in processing the editorial workflow and the consistency of keywords and it would speed up the printing process. Besides for the future it would offer the creation of new abstract magazines and digital derivatives such as magnetic tape services and online information services. By 1969 the system was up and running, while the knowledge gained by the computer department was used in a large reference work project The Great Spectrum Encyclopaedia[iii] and, partly, in the academic library project PICA.

Searching

Search in the Kluwer legal database (ASCII)

From 1967 onwards it was a period of experimenting in a developing online world. Computer technology and telecom technology were combined into services, offering access to text and numerical databases by keyboards and dumb terminals. Central computer systems with databases could be remotely accessed and searched. As transfer protocol between the central computer and the devices, the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) was used; searching in the databases was command driven. The technology for database services were developed were developed in the USA in the early seventies of last century and the technology was transferred to Europe soon after.
Commercial information services for business analysts and scientists such as SDC and Dialog came into existence and Excerpta Medica as well as some Dutch governmental services started to deliver (ASCII) abstract databases and updates to those services.  By 1975 the first serious investment into database publishing was made by the publishing company Kluwer, which started to develop a legal database from 1975 onwards.

Videotex

The ASCII database services were centred around mini-computers, computer devices and from 1977 onwards on personal computers. In Europe however another online technology, named videotext[iv], was developed by the British Post Office (BPO). By using the television set as a delivery station, access was gained to a central computer. While ASCII databases were line driven, videotex was page oriented, presenting a screen page of 24 lines of 40 digits, delivering text in seven colours. The information was structured like a tree with pages in numerical levels from 0 to 9. The use of television in combination with the telephone and the screen pages were seen as an advantage to reach small business enterprises and residential population. Stimulated by the emerging European Community, many postal organisations started to experiment with the technology.
In The Netherlands there was a first viewing of the system in 1976. It was only in 1978 that the technology was shown during a Dutch consumer electronics fair FIRATO and aroused some excitement among a number of companies. Given the reactions by companies the Dutch post organisation PTT announced the start of the service Viditel for 1980 later in the year. At the same time the Dutch publishing company VNU created a videotext consultancy TVS as it saw a threat for its jbo advertisements in the system for its controlled circulation weeklies.

PC services for amateurs

The trend of PC services for amateurs such as Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and consumer ASCII services like CompuServe in the USA, well known for their e-mail services at the end of the seventies, did not catch on hold in The Netherland till the mid-eighties.

Professional users

From the early beginning of online information services worldwide Dutch professional users had started to use the services for mainly financial inquiries or scientific research. They used mainly American services like Reuters, Dialog, SDC and BRS. European scientific databases were made available by the European Space Agency as well as British and French services. These professionals were usually employed by and searching as an intermediary on behalf of multinational companies or universities. In 1977 they established a professional association of Dutch intermediaries (VOGIN), published a book on search techniques in 1981 and set up a training program.

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[i]   Geert Lovinck (2011), My First Recession: Critical Internet Cultures in Transition. Nai Publishers.

[ii]  Verhoog, Jeroen (2008), SURFnet 1988-2008: twintig jaar grensverleggend netwerken. SURFnet.

[iii] The Great Spectrum Encyclopaedia by the publishing house Het Spectrum, a VNU subsidiary, prepared format for the Academic American Encyclopaedia, published in print and experimentally online in 1980 by Arête Publishing, a VNU subsidiary. In 1982 an interactive version was published on a videodisk and shown at the Frankfurt Book Fair. By 1985 the  Academic American Encyclopaedia was sold to the US publisher Grolier and produced in print and an on CD-ROM.

[iv] Videotex is the general term for the technology initially using a television set as delivery station. The term viewdata has also been used early in the development but had to be cancelled due to a brand name registration conflict.  

Instalment 3:  Commercial online services and offline products