The mini-series has ended. I have been showing artefacts I have kept, which I consider part of 30 years new media history. I can not say that I collected them as I kept them more than especially acquired them. When I moved last year I had to make a selection of what I should keep and what I should discard. That was a tough choice. But looking back in the series I think I kept the artefacts dearest to me and discarded material that was still around.
The series also made me realise that I have still a lot of material in boxes. With some 880 CD-ROMs and 88 CD-I discs and some of their boxes and covers I can show the time spirit, while I can still play most of the mini-disc electronic books.
I got a telephone call from a journalist, who complimented me with the series and asked me what I was going to do with it. That was a good question. In the Netherlands we do not have a special place, theme park or a museum for it. The journalist phoned around to potential stakeholders, but he did not come back with good news. In the Netherlands there is a computer museum, but it consists of a depot and does not have any exhibition space. Personally I do not keep my e-book readers for the particular chip or the software, but for the application. Still once there is a computer museum, you can show applications. There is another foundation in the Netherlands which wants to start up a virtual museum. The principle is to photograph and film machines, put them on line, but leave the physical machines with the owners such as companies or private individuals. Personally I think this will not work. Of course big companies like Philips will take care of their company heritage. But with smaller companies a new boss comes in, has other plans and the vintage machines have to move…to the rubbish dump. The same goes for individuals; the family does not have any interest and puts it on the street for garbage collection as soon the individual goes to the old folks home. So a virtual museum without a physical museum is no option to me.
Looking more at the content museums, there are a few options. There is a museum of communication in The Hague. It is the museum of the incumbent telecom company PTT later KPN. The museum is focussing on communication devices. It recently acquired the iPhone gadget. So they might be interested in the videotext executive terminal some day. But not for the time being. As the CD-ROMs and CD-Is are content products the National Library might be interested in them since it has a depot for electronic (mainly textual) products. So some of the text CD-ROMs might be of interest some day. The multimedia products would also fit in the collection of the Institute of Image and Sound, the former broadcast museum. So far they are interested in broadcast and movie material and not in the vintage multimedia products.
You would think that there is still a market opening for a computer museum with a section for applications. Perhaps the idea of a museum is too limited and one would have to organise a hall in a theme park like Walt Disney World Resort with the Epcot centre (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). It could contain vintage computers, vintage content products and services, contemporary products and services and of course vintage and contemporary computer games.
Looking back at the mini-series I realise that the term digital heritage is an ambiguous term. In circles of museums and libraries it is used for digital representations of physical treasures like rare manuscripts. But it is seldom used for artefacts, which have been created with computers and only exist in digital form. Many of these products and services have already been lost as there was no collection policy or any stakeholder. I have already made a plea several times to produce a European database of nominated and winning digital products and services for research in content and economics as well as for entertainment.
I guess that I will return to the subject of digital heritage in the future.
Blog Posting Number: 834
Tags: digital heritage
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (25)
1977: TI Silent data terminal
I still have a photograph of the machine, which put me in contact with the online world for the first time, a Texas Instruments Silent data printer. It was basically an electronic typewriter with thermal paper and a built-in acoustic modem with telephone holder. The speed was 110 baud; a fast typist would mess up the transmission. I only have a photograph, but do not have a unit in my museum. A data monitor at that time was expensive and did not contain any smart functions; they were dumb terminal. So the TI Silent was an efficient terminal to lug around and demonstrate search actions with from remote host machines at Deventer, the home of Kluwer Legal, but also legal US online services such as Lexis and Westlaw.
The machine and the depicted desktop version were in use for demonstrations within Kluwer Legal. This management of this Kluwer division had visited the US in 1975, looking at legal databases such as Lexis and Westlaw. In their trip report to the holding the management had concluded that Kluwer Legal had to invest in this type of future. And the company did. By 1977 there was a Bull mainframe with the retrieval software package Status, developed the UK nuclear laboratory in Harwell. It was a full text retrieval package which searched on any word in a file. And Kluwer assigned two pioneers, Mr Cor Verschoor for the marketing side and Mr Jaap van Beelen for the technical side. One of the first actions of the team was to load some files to demonstrate the retrieval system. Photo typesetting files were converted. One of the first problems was that the files were not the final error-free texts. So the files had to be corrected before they were loaded again. At last they had a working demonstration file and could start demonstrating at the offices of lawyers and demonstrations for the professionally interested groups. Around 1980 Kluwer came out of the laboratory phase and started to commercialise the service. Given the limitations of the Dutch language and the geographical limits of a country like the Netherlands it was going to be a long-haul to make it profitable business. Yet there was a lot of optimism. The targets groups was broad and had clients in government, lawyers and legal consultants in companies. Mr C.A.F. van Kempen used in an interview with Boekblad in 1981 the following sum to demonstrate the legal potential: “There are some 4.000 lawyers divided over 1.200 offices. This means a multiplicity of users per office.” At that time the publisher already bet on a bridging of the generation gap; the younger the user, the longer the usage. In 1985 the development costs of the Kluwer Legal Database, valued at 12 million Dutch florins, roughly 6 million euro, were written off. In 1987 the online service was extended with CD-ROM products. These off-line text products were completed with an online service for the latest news and developments in the legal sector.
For Kluwer, at that time a conglomerate of newspapers, magazines, professional information services and encyclopaedias, the online service was a great inspiration. People in the subsidiaries started to think about electronic publishing and the future of publishing. A working party was set up and demonstrations and meetings were organised to start up the discussion. In this way the publisher was prepared for its future.
In the rest of the Netherlands online was a topic for cybrarians, librarians who looked into the future. In 1977 they started an association of Dutch Online Users, VOGIN. I guess that they are the first Dutch institution which were registered in the database of the Chambers of Commerce with the word online in their name. They were also the first association which published a book about online retrieval in Dutch in 1981. During the advent of internet, the association fled into the safe arms of the library association and missed an opportunity to educate the new online generation in media literacy and in using search machines.
Blog Posting Number: 833
Tags: digital heritage
I still have a photograph of the machine, which put me in contact with the online world for the first time, a Texas Instruments Silent data printer. It was basically an electronic typewriter with thermal paper and a built-in acoustic modem with telephone holder. The speed was 110 baud; a fast typist would mess up the transmission. I only have a photograph, but do not have a unit in my museum. A data monitor at that time was expensive and did not contain any smart functions; they were dumb terminal. So the TI Silent was an efficient terminal to lug around and demonstrate search actions with from remote host machines at Deventer, the home of Kluwer Legal, but also legal US online services such as Lexis and Westlaw.
The machine and the depicted desktop version were in use for demonstrations within Kluwer Legal. This management of this Kluwer division had visited the US in 1975, looking at legal databases such as Lexis and Westlaw. In their trip report to the holding the management had concluded that Kluwer Legal had to invest in this type of future. And the company did. By 1977 there was a Bull mainframe with the retrieval software package Status, developed the UK nuclear laboratory in Harwell. It was a full text retrieval package which searched on any word in a file. And Kluwer assigned two pioneers, Mr Cor Verschoor for the marketing side and Mr Jaap van Beelen for the technical side. One of the first actions of the team was to load some files to demonstrate the retrieval system. Photo typesetting files were converted. One of the first problems was that the files were not the final error-free texts. So the files had to be corrected before they were loaded again. At last they had a working demonstration file and could start demonstrating at the offices of lawyers and demonstrations for the professionally interested groups. Around 1980 Kluwer came out of the laboratory phase and started to commercialise the service. Given the limitations of the Dutch language and the geographical limits of a country like the Netherlands it was going to be a long-haul to make it profitable business. Yet there was a lot of optimism. The targets groups was broad and had clients in government, lawyers and legal consultants in companies. Mr C.A.F. van Kempen used in an interview with Boekblad in 1981 the following sum to demonstrate the legal potential: “There are some 4.000 lawyers divided over 1.200 offices. This means a multiplicity of users per office.” At that time the publisher already bet on a bridging of the generation gap; the younger the user, the longer the usage. In 1985 the development costs of the Kluwer Legal Database, valued at 12 million Dutch florins, roughly 6 million euro, were written off. In 1987 the online service was extended with CD-ROM products. These off-line text products were completed with an online service for the latest news and developments in the legal sector.
For Kluwer, at that time a conglomerate of newspapers, magazines, professional information services and encyclopaedias, the online service was a great inspiration. People in the subsidiaries started to think about electronic publishing and the future of publishing. A working party was set up and demonstrations and meetings were organised to start up the discussion. In this way the publisher was prepared for its future.
In the rest of the Netherlands online was a topic for cybrarians, librarians who looked into the future. In 1977 they started an association of Dutch Online Users, VOGIN. I guess that they are the first Dutch institution which were registered in the database of the Chambers of Commerce with the word online in their name. They were also the first association which published a book about online retrieval in Dutch in 1981. During the advent of internet, the association fled into the safe arms of the library association and missed an opportunity to educate the new online generation in media literacy and in using search machines.
Blog Posting Number: 833
Tags: digital heritage
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (24)
1978: Teletekst
I have also saved two pictures of the television information and subtitling service Teletekst, which started an experimental phase on April 1, 1978. This service was based on the BBC service Ceefax (see fax). Two employees of the Dutch public broadcast service NOS, Jan Buddingh and Cees Veenendaal saw the Ceefax service in 1976 and started lobbying for introduction in the Netherlands.
On April 1, 1978 the Dutch broadcast foundation NOS started the experimental phase of Teletekst to experiment in a small church in Bussum outside broadcast city Hilversum. This period was closed with the launch of Teletekst. Project leader Wim Stokla managed a small department, which took care of the 100 pages, mainly news pages and pages with information on radio and television programs. But the department also took care of undertitling programs. On October 4,5, and 6, 1980 at the start of the new television season, the department took care of undertitling the trilogy Mourning becomes Elektra (Rouw past Elektra), a television play by John van de Rest.Teletekst was in some way a source of confusion for new media novices, so on September 5, 1978 a symposium was held under the title Viewdata and Teletekst. People had to be given an explanation that teletext was a broadcast medium transported by the ether and forwarded by cable, while for videotext information was transported over the telephone line. But by its launch Teletekst was clearly profiled as a broadcast service. The service was a broadcast medium by legal definition with moving pages. The broadcast industry did not any interference by commercial parties. With the advent of commercial broadcast companies in 1989 the teletext system became also in commercial use.
The introduction of Dutch language service Teletekst took some time as television sets needed a particular chipset. For the launch special decoder boxes were sold. However the new television sets after 1980 had a built-in chip set; such television set bore the price tag of 3000 Dutch guilders (roughly less than 1500 euro). These days it is difficult to get a television set without a teletext chip set in the Netherlands.The first Teletekst computer could store 100 pages. At the end of 1981 the computer could hold 200 pages. The Teletekst editorial staff was extended and the NOS Teletekst service had become part and parcel of the broadcasting service, according to Wim Stokla. Eventually the amount of pages grew to 1000 pages. This created space for more information categories. So next to the news and broadcast information pages new services were linked into the services. One of the most popular services before the Internet era was the Schiphol service on departure and arrival times. When in 1989 the commercial broadcasting companies atrted to broadcast, they also started to use the teletext facilities for commercial use such as (sex) advertisement. In 1995 more than 80 per cent of the Dutch households had a television with Teletekst facility.
With the arrival of Internet, Teletekst got the PC as an extra outlet. In 1993 the NOS started its own Teletekst site on internet. In 2000 the service got its own browser, which can be downloaded. In the meantime Internet and mobile phones have become extra outlets for Teletekst. This has an effect on the visits to the Teletekst pages on television, which are going down. By 2004 the viewing figure had gone down to 2,2, million people, a drop of 20 per cent since 2000.
Has Teletekst a future or will it be replaced by interactive teletext? Looking at the growth of setup boxes for digital television in Great Britain, the bell for teletext will toll in the near future. An interactive teletext service on a setup box looks more like an Internet news service and will offer more and better graphical information than the present teletext system. In the Netherlands the change over will take some time and will depend on the change over from analogue broadcast to digital broadcast.
On Tuesday April 1, 2005 the Dutch television information and subtitling service Teletekst existed 25 years. It has been the longest running and most used new media service ever.
Blog Posting Number: 833
Tags: digital heritage
I have also saved two pictures of the television information and subtitling service Teletekst, which started an experimental phase on April 1, 1978. This service was based on the BBC service Ceefax (see fax). Two employees of the Dutch public broadcast service NOS, Jan Buddingh and Cees Veenendaal saw the Ceefax service in 1976 and started lobbying for introduction in the Netherlands.
On April 1, 1978 the Dutch broadcast foundation NOS started the experimental phase of Teletekst to experiment in a small church in Bussum outside broadcast city Hilversum. This period was closed with the launch of Teletekst. Project leader Wim Stokla managed a small department, which took care of the 100 pages, mainly news pages and pages with information on radio and television programs. But the department also took care of undertitling programs. On October 4,5, and 6, 1980 at the start of the new television season, the department took care of undertitling the trilogy Mourning becomes Elektra (Rouw past Elektra), a television play by John van de Rest.Teletekst was in some way a source of confusion for new media novices, so on September 5, 1978 a symposium was held under the title Viewdata and Teletekst. People had to be given an explanation that teletext was a broadcast medium transported by the ether and forwarded by cable, while for videotext information was transported over the telephone line. But by its launch Teletekst was clearly profiled as a broadcast service. The service was a broadcast medium by legal definition with moving pages. The broadcast industry did not any interference by commercial parties. With the advent of commercial broadcast companies in 1989 the teletext system became also in commercial use.
The introduction of Dutch language service Teletekst took some time as television sets needed a particular chipset. For the launch special decoder boxes were sold. However the new television sets after 1980 had a built-in chip set; such television set bore the price tag of 3000 Dutch guilders (roughly less than 1500 euro). These days it is difficult to get a television set without a teletext chip set in the Netherlands.The first Teletekst computer could store 100 pages. At the end of 1981 the computer could hold 200 pages. The Teletekst editorial staff was extended and the NOS Teletekst service had become part and parcel of the broadcasting service, according to Wim Stokla. Eventually the amount of pages grew to 1000 pages. This created space for more information categories. So next to the news and broadcast information pages new services were linked into the services. One of the most popular services before the Internet era was the Schiphol service on departure and arrival times. When in 1989 the commercial broadcasting companies atrted to broadcast, they also started to use the teletext facilities for commercial use such as (sex) advertisement. In 1995 more than 80 per cent of the Dutch households had a television with Teletekst facility.
With the arrival of Internet, Teletekst got the PC as an extra outlet. In 1993 the NOS started its own Teletekst site on internet. In 2000 the service got its own browser, which can be downloaded. In the meantime Internet and mobile phones have become extra outlets for Teletekst. This has an effect on the visits to the Teletekst pages on television, which are going down. By 2004 the viewing figure had gone down to 2,2, million people, a drop of 20 per cent since 2000.
Has Teletekst a future or will it be replaced by interactive teletext? Looking at the growth of setup boxes for digital television in Great Britain, the bell for teletext will toll in the near future. An interactive teletext service on a setup box looks more like an Internet news service and will offer more and better graphical information than the present teletext system. In the Netherlands the change over will take some time and will depend on the change over from analogue broadcast to digital broadcast.
On Tuesday April 1, 2005 the Dutch television information and subtitling service Teletekst existed 25 years. It has been the longest running and most used new media service ever.
Blog Posting Number: 833
Tags: digital heritage
Monday, August 06, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (23)
1978: Video discs
I have in my collection a few video discs. I never worked with them, but they have a special place in the collection. It is the beginning of the optical disc series of video discs, CD-ROM and DVD. But they were also part of a media carrier war between discs and video recording tapes. Besides the medium was intended for the consumer market, but ended up in a niche market.
The video disc was developed by MCA, a technology and amusement holding, in 1969. The disc was under development by several consumer electronics manufacturers. Within Philips Mr Klaas Compaan was involved in the development. By 1978 the disc was out of the laboratory and the first copy of the movie Jaws marketed. MCA had an extensive movie library and was ready to start the manufacturing of the amusement discs.
But at that time the video tape technology was also being developed. The video disc had sharp image, but the video tapes (JVC, Video2000 and Betamax) did not. But on the other hand video disc were only playable, while video tapes were payable and recordable. Besides the video discs were heavy and sluggish with 30 centimetre diameter. By 2000 the video disc, named laserdisc by that time, was taken off the market, mostly due to the heavy costs of marketing and the rise of the new DVD technology.
The discs I have are professional information discs. They are basically photograph albums with by-lines. The photographs could be retrieved and located through searching the texts of the by-lines. And the disc could be set in a loop for exhibitions.
I only have a few video discs in my collection. The one I like most is the Royal Dutch Library disc which contains 7000 illustrations, all from the mediaeval books in the possession of the Dutch Royal Library. Th disc is complete with a box and booklet. I have never seen the miniatures as I do not have a video disc player. But I saw fabulous illustrations on internet later on. They can be looked up with English language by-lines and classified with ICONCLASS.
I worked from 1970 till 1973 for the Great Spectum Encyclopaedia. This was a revolutionary encyclopaedia in as far as many illistrations and artwork were used. When the encyclopaedia was completed in 1979, the database held no less than 45.000 illustrations. They were put on a video disc for fast retrieval and rights matters. I have seen the system work in Paris during an exhibition in 1985.
The VNU New Media Group explored the opportunities of the video disc and got into contact with the company CAT. Together they developed an interactive medical disc with 30.000 slides for diagnosis and training. Some more medical videodiscs were produced by CAT and the VNU New Media Group, amongst others with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. But the VNU New Media Group never got a convincing market share.
Blog Posting Number: 832
Tags: digital heritage
I have in my collection a few video discs. I never worked with them, but they have a special place in the collection. It is the beginning of the optical disc series of video discs, CD-ROM and DVD. But they were also part of a media carrier war between discs and video recording tapes. Besides the medium was intended for the consumer market, but ended up in a niche market.
The video disc was developed by MCA, a technology and amusement holding, in 1969. The disc was under development by several consumer electronics manufacturers. Within Philips Mr Klaas Compaan was involved in the development. By 1978 the disc was out of the laboratory and the first copy of the movie Jaws marketed. MCA had an extensive movie library and was ready to start the manufacturing of the amusement discs.
But at that time the video tape technology was also being developed. The video disc had sharp image, but the video tapes (JVC, Video2000 and Betamax) did not. But on the other hand video disc were only playable, while video tapes were payable and recordable. Besides the video discs were heavy and sluggish with 30 centimetre diameter. By 2000 the video disc, named laserdisc by that time, was taken off the market, mostly due to the heavy costs of marketing and the rise of the new DVD technology.
The discs I have are professional information discs. They are basically photograph albums with by-lines. The photographs could be retrieved and located through searching the texts of the by-lines. And the disc could be set in a loop for exhibitions.
I only have a few video discs in my collection. The one I like most is the Royal Dutch Library disc which contains 7000 illustrations, all from the mediaeval books in the possession of the Dutch Royal Library. Th disc is complete with a box and booklet. I have never seen the miniatures as I do not have a video disc player. But I saw fabulous illustrations on internet later on. They can be looked up with English language by-lines and classified with ICONCLASS.
I worked from 1970 till 1973 for the Great Spectum Encyclopaedia. This was a revolutionary encyclopaedia in as far as many illistrations and artwork were used. When the encyclopaedia was completed in 1979, the database held no less than 45.000 illustrations. They were put on a video disc for fast retrieval and rights matters. I have seen the system work in Paris during an exhibition in 1985.
The VNU New Media Group explored the opportunities of the video disc and got into contact with the company CAT. Together they developed an interactive medical disc with 30.000 slides for diagnosis and training. Some more medical videodiscs were produced by CAT and the VNU New Media Group, amongst others with the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. But the VNU New Media Group never got a convincing market share.
Blog Posting Number: 832
Tags: digital heritage
Sunday, August 05, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (22)
1980: Apple II
In 1980 I got acquainted with Apple. In the company we had CP/M machine like the Superbrain (see photograph from the VNU Koerier). But as we were a new media lab, we tried everything; also Apple. To me the Apple was the same as the CP/M machines, but in 1980 the Apple was fascinating to me in as far as it made music. Apple as well as CP/M computers were ready for programming in Basic, text processing in Wordstar and calculating with Visicalc.
But at Christmas 1980, I took the Apple machine home and discovered the music on it. At that time to me a computer was no more than an automated typewriter and an enlarged calculator. The Apple II had a computer version of Switch-on Bach (listen to a fragment of the analogue version), a bestseller of the MOOG synthesizer music. I had bought the vinyl version in 1968 and still have it. It still makes Christmas 1980 stand out.
The Apple IIe in my collection is not the first Apple I worked with. From an acquaintance I got an Apple IIe, a machine produced from 1983 onwards. The keyboard was fixed to the machine. On top of it there is a separate dual floppy disk drive. The monitor is still in one of my moving boxes.
Come to think of it, the first confrontation with an Apple did not convert me to the Apple section. Despite the fact that I was impressed by the interface, I never bought an Apple for the company. When I worked for the newspaper company Wegener for one year in 1995, I was issued a portable Apple as the company was into graphics. I enjoyed the use of it, but once the year was over I did not feel unhappy going back to my Windows PC.
Yet I have always been impressed by the inventiveness of the company. Besides the many computers as Apple II, Lisa and Apple Book, it created the personal digital assistant Newton with handwriting recognition software; the iPOD; iTunes, the iPhone. Apple brought and still brings sound and vision to computing.
Blog Posting Number: 831
Tag: digital heritage
In 1980 I got acquainted with Apple. In the company we had CP/M machine like the Superbrain (see photograph from the VNU Koerier). But as we were a new media lab, we tried everything; also Apple. To me the Apple was the same as the CP/M machines, but in 1980 the Apple was fascinating to me in as far as it made music. Apple as well as CP/M computers were ready for programming in Basic, text processing in Wordstar and calculating with Visicalc.
But at Christmas 1980, I took the Apple machine home and discovered the music on it. At that time to me a computer was no more than an automated typewriter and an enlarged calculator. The Apple II had a computer version of Switch-on Bach (listen to a fragment of the analogue version), a bestseller of the MOOG synthesizer music. I had bought the vinyl version in 1968 and still have it. It still makes Christmas 1980 stand out.
The Apple IIe in my collection is not the first Apple I worked with. From an acquaintance I got an Apple IIe, a machine produced from 1983 onwards. The keyboard was fixed to the machine. On top of it there is a separate dual floppy disk drive. The monitor is still in one of my moving boxes.Come to think of it, the first confrontation with an Apple did not convert me to the Apple section. Despite the fact that I was impressed by the interface, I never bought an Apple for the company. When I worked for the newspaper company Wegener for one year in 1995, I was issued a portable Apple as the company was into graphics. I enjoyed the use of it, but once the year was over I did not feel unhappy going back to my Windows PC.
Yet I have always been impressed by the inventiveness of the company. Besides the many computers as Apple II, Lisa and Apple Book, it created the personal digital assistant Newton with handwriting recognition software; the iPOD; iTunes, the iPhone. Apple brought and still brings sound and vision to computing.
Blog Posting Number: 831
Tag: digital heritage
Saturday, August 04, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (21)
1980: Executive videotex terminal
1980 was an exciting year. The first consumer and business online service went online on August 8, named Viditel. It was a videotex service in the European tradition. The service worked according to a presentation protocol. The screen contained 24 lines of 40 digits. There were capital and under cast letters as well as the numbers. The information was structured according to a menu of pages from the root 0 to combinations of 1 to 9. Dutch KLM had for example its information on the system behind the code 747. The letters could be coloured in 8 colours and words could flash.
At the launch of the service, I was managing a production studio, where pages were designed for VNU companies and third parties. One of the sites was a jobsite for VNU (photograph left) and the other one was for an agency of the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs (photograph right).
The consumer service was intended to be presented on an adapted television set. For business there was a special terminal developed. Mind you, PCs were scarce and in 1980 there was not yet videotex presentation software developed for the PC. An executive terminal with manually soldered boards was produced in the UK. The terminal (see photograph) could receive television and the television text service teletext, while it could receive videotex, when connected to the telephone line.
The unit in my museum is one of the 1000 units which VNU ordered in their enthusiasm about the online service in 1979. VNU had established a new media lab within the company VNU Database Publishing International. This company, part of the business information division at that time, was set to start online videotex services for business. But the Dutch PTT, the present KPN, decided just before the launch that the incumbent telecom company and not the publisher VNU was going to service this market segment. So VNU was left with 1.000 executive videotex terminals. Lacking a good business service, an internal VNU service was set up between the company managers, so that they could use it for messages, make appointments and pick up internal information. The service never really left the drawing table; besides the acceptance of this type of service was not great for more than one reason. People were not used to pick up information from a terminal and the service did not have an added value. So the terminals started to catch dust. Soon PCs came around and the videotex terminals were ready for oblivion.
The Viditel service never was a success. The consumer service basically failed, while the public business services were not many. But the closed user group services and special application services proved to be a money maker for the PTT. VNU stepped out of videotex in 1988 after trying business and consumer services.
Blog Posting Number: 830
Tags: digital heritage
1980 was an exciting year. The first consumer and business online service went online on August 8, named Viditel. It was a videotex service in the European tradition. The service worked according to a presentation protocol. The screen contained 24 lines of 40 digits. There were capital and under cast letters as well as the numbers. The information was structured according to a menu of pages from the root 0 to combinations of 1 to 9. Dutch KLM had for example its information on the system behind the code 747. The letters could be coloured in 8 colours and words could flash.
At the launch of the service, I was managing a production studio, where pages were designed for VNU companies and third parties. One of the sites was a jobsite for VNU (photograph left) and the other one was for an agency of the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs (photograph right).
The consumer service was intended to be presented on an adapted television set. For business there was a special terminal developed. Mind you, PCs were scarce and in 1980 there was not yet videotex presentation software developed for the PC. An executive terminal with manually soldered boards was produced in the UK. The terminal (see photograph) could receive television and the television text service teletext, while it could receive videotex, when connected to the telephone line.
The unit in my museum is one of the 1000 units which VNU ordered in their enthusiasm about the online service in 1979. VNU had established a new media lab within the company VNU Database Publishing International. This company, part of the business information division at that time, was set to start online videotex services for business. But the Dutch PTT, the present KPN, decided just before the launch that the incumbent telecom company and not the publisher VNU was going to service this market segment. So VNU was left with 1.000 executive videotex terminals. Lacking a good business service, an internal VNU service was set up between the company managers, so that they could use it for messages, make appointments and pick up internal information. The service never really left the drawing table; besides the acceptance of this type of service was not great for more than one reason. People were not used to pick up information from a terminal and the service did not have an added value. So the terminals started to catch dust. Soon PCs came around and the videotex terminals were ready for oblivion.The Viditel service never was a success. The consumer service basically failed, while the public business services were not many. But the closed user group services and special application services proved to be a money maker for the PTT. VNU stepped out of videotex in 1988 after trying business and consumer services.
Blog Posting Number: 830
Tags: digital heritage
Friday, August 03, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (20)
1983: Tandy TRS Model 100
I consider the Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (serial number 305100123) as one of centre pieces of my museum. It was one of the first portable PCs, which had everything. The Model 100 came with:
- Microsoft BASIC programming language;
- word processing software;
- telecommunications software;
- built-in 300 baud modem.
(Nice detail is that Bill Gates wrote a significant amount of the code; in fact it was the last piece of code he wrote as said in the Bill Gates Interview from the Smithsonian Institute).
This portable computer was introduced in 1982. It was made by Kyocera, and originally sold in Japan as the Kyotronic 85, although it was at first a slow seller. The rights to the machine were purchased by Tandy Corporation, and the computer was sold through the Radio Shack distribution chain in the US. It was also sold as the Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201.
There was no boot up routine. The Model 100 was in operation as soon as you flipped the on switch and selected an application (enlarge the photograph of the machine to see the menu). The ROM contained a terminal program, TELCOM; an address/phone book organizer, ADDRSS; a to-do list organizer, SCHEDL; and a simple text editor, TEXT. The TELCOM program allows automation of a login sequence to a time sharing system under control of the BASIC interpreter. Although this A4 size machine was much larger, the Model 100 actually bears a close resemblance to modern PDA's.
It was a nice portable PC of 1,5 kilo. At the time that the Moidel 100 came onto the market, there were only lugables of 10 kilo or more such as the Osborne and Kaypro. Of course these lugables were fully equiped with floppy disc drives and a lot more internal memory. But a decent portable was not on the market.
And can you believe that it worked for 20 hours with only 4 AA batteries; there was of course an external power adaptor. You could also link the machine to a printer. It had also a cover for transport, so you could take it along. I still remember people looking up in the London underground, not because of the novelty, but because of the noise the keys made. It was a fine machine. Whenever I still have it in my hands and turn it on, I still consider it fabulous, despite the screen with eight line and the 32K internal memory. More than 6,000,000 units were sold worldwide.
The feature that attracted me most was the telecom. The modem was built in and the software was pre-loaded. So whenever you could connect to a telephone line, there was a chance that you could reach a host like Dialog or mail server like BT Telecom Gold. I used the Model 100 a lot on my business trips to the UK and in 1986 I even wrote a book (see photograph of cover) on it. Whenever I reached the limit of memory, I loaded the text off to the mail server and picked it up later on the company’s Superbrain.
I saw the Tandy TRS Model 100 for the first time in London in 1982 when I and a colleague had dinner with a US guy. He had worked for Westinghouse, a telecom company which was much into e-mail services. Once the software was operational Don saw great opportunities and started to work as a freelancer. And he hit the million dollar bucket in less than two years. He produced complete accounting report systems for companies. And one of his group of clients was the rock music bands. He treated this very confidentially. But one of his clients was David Bowie. For his tours he had developed a report system from the preparation team, the roadies to the stage team. When the concert was over, the manager could see how much money they had made that night.
I wrote this blog on the Tandy TRS Model 100 and sent it to Blogger.
I consider the Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 (serial number 305100123) as one of centre pieces of my museum. It was one of the first portable PCs, which had everything. The Model 100 came with:- Microsoft BASIC programming language;
- word processing software;
- telecommunications software;
- built-in 300 baud modem.
(Nice detail is that Bill Gates wrote a significant amount of the code; in fact it was the last piece of code he wrote as said in the Bill Gates Interview from the Smithsonian Institute).
This portable computer was introduced in 1982. It was made by Kyocera, and originally sold in Japan as the Kyotronic 85, although it was at first a slow seller. The rights to the machine were purchased by Tandy Corporation, and the computer was sold through the Radio Shack distribution chain in the US. It was also sold as the Olivetti M-10 and the NEC PC-8201.
There was no boot up routine. The Model 100 was in operation as soon as you flipped the on switch and selected an application (enlarge the photograph of the machine to see the menu). The ROM contained a terminal program, TELCOM; an address/phone book organizer, ADDRSS; a to-do list organizer, SCHEDL; and a simple text editor, TEXT. The TELCOM program allows automation of a login sequence to a time sharing system under control of the BASIC interpreter. Although this A4 size machine was much larger, the Model 100 actually bears a close resemblance to modern PDA's.
It was a nice portable PC of 1,5 kilo. At the time that the Moidel 100 came onto the market, there were only lugables of 10 kilo or more such as the Osborne and Kaypro. Of course these lugables were fully equiped with floppy disc drives and a lot more internal memory. But a decent portable was not on the market.
And can you believe that it worked for 20 hours with only 4 AA batteries; there was of course an external power adaptor. You could also link the machine to a printer. It had also a cover for transport, so you could take it along. I still remember people looking up in the London underground, not because of the novelty, but because of the noise the keys made. It was a fine machine. Whenever I still have it in my hands and turn it on, I still consider it fabulous, despite the screen with eight line and the 32K internal memory. More than 6,000,000 units were sold worldwide.
The feature that attracted me most was the telecom. The modem was built in and the software was pre-loaded. So whenever you could connect to a telephone line, there was a chance that you could reach a host like Dialog or mail server like BT Telecom Gold. I used the Model 100 a lot on my business trips to the UK and in 1986 I even wrote a book (see photograph of cover) on it. Whenever I reached the limit of memory, I loaded the text off to the mail server and picked it up later on the company’s Superbrain.I saw the Tandy TRS Model 100 for the first time in London in 1982 when I and a colleague had dinner with a US guy. He had worked for Westinghouse, a telecom company which was much into e-mail services. Once the software was operational Don saw great opportunities and started to work as a freelancer. And he hit the million dollar bucket in less than two years. He produced complete accounting report systems for companies. And one of his group of clients was the rock music bands. He treated this very confidentially. But one of his clients was David Bowie. For his tours he had developed a report system from the preparation team, the roadies to the stage team. When the concert was over, the manager could see how much money they had made that night.
I wrote this blog on the Tandy TRS Model 100 and sent it to Blogger.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (19)
1983: Sinclair ZX Spectrum
In 1983 I acquired for 175 British Pounds the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a light weight and slim line home computer with 48K (serial number 012-843461) with ‘dead flesh’ (rubber) keys. The machine came onto the market in 1982. It was an instant success for more than one reason.
I knew Sinclair since 1972 from his drive of efforts to reduce voluminous machines. Directly visible was the calculator; Mr Sinclair reduced the desk calculator to a pocket calculator and made it jewellery for the businessman. Later on he made a portable television set, a tricycle and light weight, portable cycle of 5 kilo. He was a very inventive man and received in 1983, after the launch of the ZX Spectrum a CBE decoration.
The ZX Spectrum was also a small machine (23x14x1,5cm). All other home and professional PCs were larger at that time and more expensive. But Sinclair knew how to reduce the dimensions having produced the computer series ZX80 and ZX82. The device had to be connected to the television set, which served as monitor. New in the ZX Spectrum was the colour; in fact one of the code names for the computer was ZX Colour, but this was later changed into ZX Spectrum. The video was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets. Text could be displayed using 32 columns × 24 rows of characters. One could work with 16 colours, but this facility had its limitations. Each of the 8 colour squares of 8x8 pixels could be used for only 2 different colours. This created some bizarre effects in the animated graphics of arcade style games. The Commodore 64 for example used other colour attributes such as hardware sprites and scrolling were used to avoid attribute clash.
The ZX Spectrum was a success from the beginning. It changed the image of a computer from a working tool into a working and gaming tool, a real home computer. In less than one and a half year more than one million devices were sold. But the success had also its dark side as the mail-order business began to foul up; so it was decided to use computer chains for distribution. It also stimulated the distribution of software. One of the success factors of the ZX Spectrum was also the vast range of software and games. Presently there is still a list of the top 100 of best games, as voted for by the visitors of World of Spectrum Archive. One of the games I remember was the Ghost Busters, a licensed game by Activision based on the movie of the same name.
The Sinclair Research company was bought by Amstrad Computers in 1986. The computer lost the interest of people as other PCs came onto the market. The ZX Spectrum was in production till 1992.
Blog Posting Number: 829
Tags: digital heritage
In 1983 I acquired for 175 British Pounds the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, a light weight and slim line home computer with 48K (serial number 012-843461) with ‘dead flesh’ (rubber) keys. The machine came onto the market in 1982. It was an instant success for more than one reason.I knew Sinclair since 1972 from his drive of efforts to reduce voluminous machines. Directly visible was the calculator; Mr Sinclair reduced the desk calculator to a pocket calculator and made it jewellery for the businessman. Later on he made a portable television set, a tricycle and light weight, portable cycle of 5 kilo. He was a very inventive man and received in 1983, after the launch of the ZX Spectrum a CBE decoration.
The ZX Spectrum was also a small machine (23x14x1,5cm). All other home and professional PCs were larger at that time and more expensive. But Sinclair knew how to reduce the dimensions having produced the computer series ZX80 and ZX82. The device had to be connected to the television set, which served as monitor. New in the ZX Spectrum was the colour; in fact one of the code names for the computer was ZX Colour, but this was later changed into ZX Spectrum. The video was designed for use with contemporary portable television sets. Text could be displayed using 32 columns × 24 rows of characters. One could work with 16 colours, but this facility had its limitations. Each of the 8 colour squares of 8x8 pixels could be used for only 2 different colours. This created some bizarre effects in the animated graphics of arcade style games. The Commodore 64 for example used other colour attributes such as hardware sprites and scrolling were used to avoid attribute clash.
The ZX Spectrum was a success from the beginning. It changed the image of a computer from a working tool into a working and gaming tool, a real home computer. In less than one and a half year more than one million devices were sold. But the success had also its dark side as the mail-order business began to foul up; so it was decided to use computer chains for distribution. It also stimulated the distribution of software. One of the success factors of the ZX Spectrum was also the vast range of software and games. Presently there is still a list of the top 100 of best games, as voted for by the visitors of World of Spectrum Archive. One of the games I remember was the Ghost Busters, a licensed game by Activision based on the movie of the same name.The Sinclair Research company was bought by Amstrad Computers in 1986. The computer lost the interest of people as other PCs came onto the market. The ZX Spectrum was in production till 1992.
Blog Posting Number: 829
Tags: digital heritage
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (18)
1984: Commodore64
We moved as a family from the Netherlands to the UK in 1983 and lived in London. In 1984 I bought a Commodore 64 for the family. It was intended as an entertainment machine in the widest sense. Of course educational software packages were also used.
We were used to PCs for professional usage, which were self-contained and floppy disc readers built-in. The Commodore64 was a home computer with the computing part under the keyboard; it used the TV screen as a monitor. Software could be loaded from a floppy-disc drive or from a cassette player.
We bought regularly software packages and games. For the Commodore64 there was an extensive assortment. Existing games for other home computers were adapted like Sprite man and a variation on King Kong.
But companies in the UK were very eager in adapting popular books. The bestseller about an adolescent teenager The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ was built into a computer game in no time and fun to play. There were even offers combining the book with a software package. Who is talking cross media as something new?
We bought also some educational games. These were Dutch adaptions from the Spinnaker software. The Schildpad (turtle) was for example a software package to learn to draw on a home computer in a special programming language. Remember there was no mouse to assist you.
My favourite game is (again a cross media product) The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The photograph shows the front of the box. The box is still intact and complete. Besides the 8 inch disc and the program instructions, there is the book, an order for demolition of Mr Dent's residence and the Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Microscopic Space Fleet. It was not easy to play the game as it was using rather abstract images in its presentation, but there was gratification reaching the second level.
The brand Commodore is still alive. I see it regularly on a warehouse when I pass the village of Baarn in the Netherlands. Besides Commodore Games is estblished in Amsterdam.
We moved as a family from the Netherlands to the UK in 1983 and lived in London. In 1984 I bought a Commodore 64 for the family. It was intended as an entertainment machine in the widest sense. Of course educational software packages were also used.
We were used to PCs for professional usage, which were self-contained and floppy disc readers built-in. The Commodore64 was a home computer with the computing part under the keyboard; it used the TV screen as a monitor. Software could be loaded from a floppy-disc drive or from a cassette player.
We bought regularly software packages and games. For the Commodore64 there was an extensive assortment. Existing games for other home computers were adapted like Sprite man and a variation on King Kong.
But companies in the UK were very eager in adapting popular books. The bestseller about an adolescent teenager The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ was built into a computer game in no time and fun to play. There were even offers combining the book with a software package. Who is talking cross media as something new?
We bought also some educational games. These were Dutch adaptions from the Spinnaker software. The Schildpad (turtle) was for example a software package to learn to draw on a home computer in a special programming language. Remember there was no mouse to assist you.
My favourite game is (again a cross media product) The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The photograph shows the front of the box. The box is still intact and complete. Besides the 8 inch disc and the program instructions, there is the book, an order for demolition of Mr Dent's residence and the Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Microscopic Space Fleet. It was not easy to play the game as it was using rather abstract images in its presentation, but there was gratification reaching the second level.
The brand Commodore is still alive. I see it regularly on a warehouse when I pass the village of Baarn in the Netherlands. Besides Commodore Games is estblished in Amsterdam.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (17)
1984: IDB Online
The picture is a collage which was pasted for the launch of IDB Online by VNU in London in December 1984. It contains a copy of the paper edition of the newsletter IDB Information Daily Bulletin published. It is dated July 11. 1984. The paper edition of the newsletter comes out of the telephone. The background of the collage was inspired by the masts at Brow Head, one of the most Southern point of Ireland from where Marconi established his first wireless transmission station. I learned that out when I was on holiday in Ireland and stayed in nearby Crook haven. Marconi was in Crookhaven during his search for a suitable site to send the first transatlantic message. He had masts at Brow Head and put a telegraphic transmitter on the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse. Some years ago, a storm took all the sand out of Galley Cove and exposed the huge cables that connected the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse with his radio room in Crookhaven.
The IDB newsletter was a daily newsletter for the computer industry. It had subscribers in the UK and USA. The paper edition was forwarded by snail mail; given the many mail strikes in the UK, the newsletters were held up often and the US subscribers fell victim to this delay. As it was an already existing newsletter, with subscribers, who were active in the computer industry an electronic edition was often discussed. Mailing a newsletter of 2K max should not be a problem.
When I was seconded to London for VNU in October 1983, I had clear ideas about the electronic edition of this newsletter. I had picked up experience with electronic newsletters as the editor-in-chief Jean-Paul Emard had started the Online Chronicle on the US host service Dialog. Every fortnight an edition was put together and I delivered news about the online scene in Europe.
Plans for a daily electronic newsletter were presented, but the management was hesitant. VNU’s first investment in electronic publishing had been in the American company Disclosure; but it was more for the returns than for the electronic publishing that VNU acquired the company. In Europe VNU had just burned some 15 million guilders in the publishing lab VNU Database Publishing International. A grant from the European Commission, great 60.000 euro, eased the project forward. In 1984 the product was developed and trialled. A deal was made with Telecom Gold, the e-mail branch of British Telecom; Telecom Gold had an email service, couple with a database service developed by Westinghouse. The daily newsletter was to be loaded on the database service, while the headlines were mailed in a message to the subscriber. In December 1984 the newsletter was launched for Europe at the Online Conference in Hammersmith. IDB Online was the first online newsletter in Europe which was published daily. In April 1985 the newsletter was daily copied to the US newsletter service NewsNet, which worked with the same software. The IDB Online service lasted into the nineties.
Blog Posting Number: 827
Tags: digital heritage
The picture is a collage which was pasted for the launch of IDB Online by VNU in London in December 1984. It contains a copy of the paper edition of the newsletter IDB Information Daily Bulletin published. It is dated July 11. 1984. The paper edition of the newsletter comes out of the telephone. The background of the collage was inspired by the masts at Brow Head, one of the most Southern point of Ireland from where Marconi established his first wireless transmission station. I learned that out when I was on holiday in Ireland and stayed in nearby Crook haven. Marconi was in Crookhaven during his search for a suitable site to send the first transatlantic message. He had masts at Brow Head and put a telegraphic transmitter on the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse. Some years ago, a storm took all the sand out of Galley Cove and exposed the huge cables that connected the Fastnet Rock Lighthouse with his radio room in Crookhaven.The IDB newsletter was a daily newsletter for the computer industry. It had subscribers in the UK and USA. The paper edition was forwarded by snail mail; given the many mail strikes in the UK, the newsletters were held up often and the US subscribers fell victim to this delay. As it was an already existing newsletter, with subscribers, who were active in the computer industry an electronic edition was often discussed. Mailing a newsletter of 2K max should not be a problem.
When I was seconded to London for VNU in October 1983, I had clear ideas about the electronic edition of this newsletter. I had picked up experience with electronic newsletters as the editor-in-chief Jean-Paul Emard had started the Online Chronicle on the US host service Dialog. Every fortnight an edition was put together and I delivered news about the online scene in Europe.
Plans for a daily electronic newsletter were presented, but the management was hesitant. VNU’s first investment in electronic publishing had been in the American company Disclosure; but it was more for the returns than for the electronic publishing that VNU acquired the company. In Europe VNU had just burned some 15 million guilders in the publishing lab VNU Database Publishing International. A grant from the European Commission, great 60.000 euro, eased the project forward. In 1984 the product was developed and trialled. A deal was made with Telecom Gold, the e-mail branch of British Telecom; Telecom Gold had an email service, couple with a database service developed by Westinghouse. The daily newsletter was to be loaded on the database service, while the headlines were mailed in a message to the subscriber. In December 1984 the newsletter was launched for Europe at the Online Conference in Hammersmith. IDB Online was the first online newsletter in Europe which was published daily. In April 1985 the newsletter was daily copied to the US newsletter service NewsNet, which worked with the same software. The IDB Online service lasted into the nineties.
Blog Posting Number: 827
Tags: digital heritage
Monday, July 30, 2007
Flash: Me-paper project sollicits readers
The Dutch financial daily is soliciting newspaper readers in the framework of the international Me-Paper project, which runs from April 2007 till March 2009. The project hopes to discover how to design the newspaper of the future; as part of the research readers will be involved. The readers will be asked to come to Eindhoven for interviews, group discussion about the design and testing the new designs on digital paper (iLiad, Readius and Sony e-books and PSP). The research will be handled by EC/DC (the European Centre for Digital Communication) with the HsZuyd college in the south of Holland; the Flemish research institute, responsible for the e-paper De Tijd project, IBBT will also be involved. Other participating newspapers are De Volkskrant, Financieele Dagblad, a national free paper, SP!TS, a regional newspaper, Eindhovens Dagblad and a local title, Barneveldse Krant. The project is funded by the Dutch Bedrijfsfonds, a funding institute for newspaper and magazine research;
My museum of content related artefacts (16)
1995: CD-ROM covers
CD-ROM covers show history. You can read from the covers whether they are text CD-ROMs or multimedia CD-ROMs. Up to 1992 CD-ROMs were mainly used as carriers for large textbooks, usually medical handbooks, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, or databases. After 1992 when the Multimedia PC standard was agreed upon the multimedia CD-ROMs came onto the market and the covers became more interesting. I have a CD-ROM collection of 766 artefacts of which I will show a few.
CD-ROM was based on the same production technology as audio CD. That process was already well known. But putting other data than music on the disc was another hurdle. Storing music on a disc was a simple process, but storing text on a CD-ROM and retrieving this, required more action. When the process was finished a glass disc, also called direct disc, was produced and tested. On top of the disc a label was fixed. in the case of the legal disc AROB test CD a silver label was fixed. VNU New Media had a glass disc produced of the text of their general encyclopaedia. By 1996 the glass disc disappeared as a simulation machine was developed by Elektroson.
I was personally involved in the production of the Kluwer, KIT, Nijgh and Lexitron discs. They were produced with three different software packages. The Kluwer and KIT discs were produced with Status, a database and retrieval package, developed by the UK nuclear organisation in Harwell. Both discs should be covered with gold as their production was so expensive. The software package was for a mainframe machine and adapted for PC. With memories of 600Mb it was possible to very large text databases on a disc. But Status stopped at 99.999 documents and in the case of Kluwer we processed over 100.000 documents. Before this handicap was discovered and mended we were a few cycles further. The Nijgh disc was produced with a package software, Dataware. The Lexitron disc of Van Dale Lexicografie was produced with the database package Wordsheet, developed by Walter van Rozendaal.
All kind of marketing techniques were used, like numbering the discs as was the case with a German telephone directory. The LiteRom is probably the most costly CD-ROM in Dutch history as the producer got a court case against him. The CD-ROM contained book reviews from newspapers. They could be consulted in libraries. But when the reviews were copied onto a disc, the newspapers and the reviewers started a court case against the publisher in 1992 and won the case in 2002.
From 1992 multimedia CD-ROMs were published. It gave an impulse to the sale of PCs as they were sold with bundles of multimedia encyclopaedias and other titles. This led to multimedia departments of publishing companies. For example in the Netherlands the consumer book and magazine division started a multimedia department which bought foreign productions, translated them and put them on the market. Later on it yielded productions as CD-Dom about the Duomo in Utrecht and Escher.
As broadband was not yet developed into the Mbps, CD-ROMs were the carriers for beautiful multimedia productions such as Anne Frank and Sviatlana, just to show two winners of the Europrix. Of course the first overall winner of the Europrix in 1998 was a CD-ROM production: The Ceremony of Innocence; IMHO one of the most beautiful CD-ROM productions ever (which can only be played with a Windows 95 software).
With the advent of the multimedia CD-ROMs the covers started to change. There was more artwork on the labels and on the boxes as the products had to compete with books in the bookshop and with the boring packaging of software. The nicest CD-ROM box I have in my collection is of the disc Burundi Black; the box is attractive and tactile. A soft tiger motive piece of textile is on the cover.
CD-ROM covers show history. You can read from the covers whether they are text CD-ROMs or multimedia CD-ROMs. Up to 1992 CD-ROMs were mainly used as carriers for large textbooks, usually medical handbooks, encyclopaedias and dictionaries, or databases. After 1992 when the Multimedia PC standard was agreed upon the multimedia CD-ROMs came onto the market and the covers became more interesting. I have a CD-ROM collection of 766 artefacts of which I will show a few.
CD-ROM was based on the same production technology as audio CD. That process was already well known. But putting other data than music on the disc was another hurdle. Storing music on a disc was a simple process, but storing text on a CD-ROM and retrieving this, required more action. When the process was finished a glass disc, also called direct disc, was produced and tested. On top of the disc a label was fixed. in the case of the legal disc AROB test CD a silver label was fixed. VNU New Media had a glass disc produced of the text of their general encyclopaedia. By 1996 the glass disc disappeared as a simulation machine was developed by Elektroson.
I was personally involved in the production of the Kluwer, KIT, Nijgh and Lexitron discs. They were produced with three different software packages. The Kluwer and KIT discs were produced with Status, a database and retrieval package, developed by the UK nuclear organisation in Harwell. Both discs should be covered with gold as their production was so expensive. The software package was for a mainframe machine and adapted for PC. With memories of 600Mb it was possible to very large text databases on a disc. But Status stopped at 99.999 documents and in the case of Kluwer we processed over 100.000 documents. Before this handicap was discovered and mended we were a few cycles further. The Nijgh disc was produced with a package software, Dataware. The Lexitron disc of Van Dale Lexicografie was produced with the database package Wordsheet, developed by Walter van Rozendaal.
All kind of marketing techniques were used, like numbering the discs as was the case with a German telephone directory. The LiteRom is probably the most costly CD-ROM in Dutch history as the producer got a court case against him. The CD-ROM contained book reviews from newspapers. They could be consulted in libraries. But when the reviews were copied onto a disc, the newspapers and the reviewers started a court case against the publisher in 1992 and won the case in 2002.
From 1992 multimedia CD-ROMs were published. It gave an impulse to the sale of PCs as they were sold with bundles of multimedia encyclopaedias and other titles. This led to multimedia departments of publishing companies. For example in the Netherlands the consumer book and magazine division started a multimedia department which bought foreign productions, translated them and put them on the market. Later on it yielded productions as CD-Dom about the Duomo in Utrecht and Escher.
As broadband was not yet developed into the Mbps, CD-ROMs were the carriers for beautiful multimedia productions such as Anne Frank and Sviatlana, just to show two winners of the Europrix. Of course the first overall winner of the Europrix in 1998 was a CD-ROM production: The Ceremony of Innocence; IMHO one of the most beautiful CD-ROM productions ever (which can only be played with a Windows 95 software).
With the advent of the multimedia CD-ROMs the covers started to change. There was more artwork on the labels and on the boxes as the products had to compete with books in the bookshop and with the boring packaging of software. The nicest CD-ROM box I have in my collection is of the disc Burundi Black; the box is attractive and tactile. A soft tiger motive piece of textile is on the cover.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (15)
1987: External CD-ROM player
The external CD-ROM player on the photograph was my first private CD-ROM player, a Sanyo PD1, Portable CD-ROM drive (serial number 13711231). At that time I was working for a software company, which had electronic publishing as a mission. Publishing CD-ROMs was part of the mission. But preaching is not enough to convince potential clients. So a PC plus a CD-ROM player was needed and those PCs were not in abundance on the market. There was no consumer market yet as CD-ROM was still a carrier of text rather than multimedia. If you needed a CD-ROM player in the early years you needed external top loaders, which were not exactly portable. So the next generation external CD-ROM players had portables, which could be linked to the PC with a 16 pins cable and software. By 1988 the first built-in CD-Rom players came on the market, produced by unknown companies. The company I was working for bought a BEST machine, which looked like a sewing machine with a blue screen. It worked well and it was transportable (something like 8 kilo in weight); but for demonstration purposes it was sufficient.
But the hardware was not the only worry from the start of CD-ROM. There was a problem with the software. From the beginning of CD-ROM in 1985 there was a problem with the software format. Every brand had its own format, which presented a problem to publishers. They would have to format their products according to brands. This would present an extra cost factor. As the problem was soon recognised by the industry, action was initiated. Computer companies (Apple), publishers (Elsevier Science with Philip Lord), software companies (Microsoft) and electronics manufacturers (Philips) started to talk to each other and decided to establish an industry standard to overcome this standard. And soon there was the High Sierra standard, named after the conference hotel High Sierra at Lake Tahu (USA). This industry standard became an official standard, ISO 9660. This standard gave an impulse to the CD-ROM text publishing industry.
In the first five years of CD-ROM the market was a professional information market and the products were mainly text oriented products such a reference works and databases. With the advent of internet between 1991 and 1993, the debate came to the point that publishers were asking themselves whether the future would be off-line with CD-ROM or online. A publisher like Elsevier SCience had invested heavily in CD-ROMs as the products were close to the books they used to publish.
It was only by 1989 that the consumer market was addressed, partly with text products and multimedia products. Problem was the lack of an industry standard of multimedia. By 1991 the MPC standard came about and the CD-ROM market bursted open. PCs were sold with built-in CD-ROM players and a bundle of CD-ROMs. Philips, still a computer manufacturer at that time, was ahead of the trend and started in 1989 the Headstart PC series with built-in CD-ROM player and a bundle/bookshelf of CD-ROMs. In Europe the bundle of CD-ROMs, under the name CompLex, was produced by AND in Rotterdam; one of these CD-ROMs contained a European road database.
Blog Posting Number: 826
Tags: digital heritage
The external CD-ROM player on the photograph was my first private CD-ROM player, a Sanyo PD1, Portable CD-ROM drive (serial number 13711231). At that time I was working for a software company, which had electronic publishing as a mission. Publishing CD-ROMs was part of the mission. But preaching is not enough to convince potential clients. So a PC plus a CD-ROM player was needed and those PCs were not in abundance on the market. There was no consumer market yet as CD-ROM was still a carrier of text rather than multimedia. If you needed a CD-ROM player in the early years you needed external top loaders, which were not exactly portable. So the next generation external CD-ROM players had portables, which could be linked to the PC with a 16 pins cable and software. By 1988 the first built-in CD-Rom players came on the market, produced by unknown companies. The company I was working for bought a BEST machine, which looked like a sewing machine with a blue screen. It worked well and it was transportable (something like 8 kilo in weight); but for demonstration purposes it was sufficient.But the hardware was not the only worry from the start of CD-ROM. There was a problem with the software. From the beginning of CD-ROM in 1985 there was a problem with the software format. Every brand had its own format, which presented a problem to publishers. They would have to format their products according to brands. This would present an extra cost factor. As the problem was soon recognised by the industry, action was initiated. Computer companies (Apple), publishers (Elsevier Science with Philip Lord), software companies (Microsoft) and electronics manufacturers (Philips) started to talk to each other and decided to establish an industry standard to overcome this standard. And soon there was the High Sierra standard, named after the conference hotel High Sierra at Lake Tahu (USA). This industry standard became an official standard, ISO 9660. This standard gave an impulse to the CD-ROM text publishing industry.
In the first five years of CD-ROM the market was a professional information market and the products were mainly text oriented products such a reference works and databases. With the advent of internet between 1991 and 1993, the debate came to the point that publishers were asking themselves whether the future would be off-line with CD-ROM or online. A publisher like Elsevier SCience had invested heavily in CD-ROMs as the products were close to the books they used to publish.
It was only by 1989 that the consumer market was addressed, partly with text products and multimedia products. Problem was the lack of an industry standard of multimedia. By 1991 the MPC standard came about and the CD-ROM market bursted open. PCs were sold with built-in CD-ROM players and a bundle of CD-ROMs. Philips, still a computer manufacturer at that time, was ahead of the trend and started in 1989 the Headstart PC series with built-in CD-ROM player and a bundle/bookshelf of CD-ROMs. In Europe the bundle of CD-ROMs, under the name CompLex, was produced by AND in Rotterdam; one of these CD-ROMs contained a European road database.Blog Posting Number: 826
Tags: digital heritage
Saturday, July 28, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (14)
The Demo Disc of Videotex Net (photograph) was the marketing tool for the revitalised online videotex service in 1989. By 1987 it was clear that the PTT service Viditel, started in 1980, would not become a large scale service. After a lot of confusion and study a plan was put on the table under the name Infodam on January 14, 1988. A large scale videotext service with 600.000 households and 120.000 Small and Middle Sized Enterprises (SMEs) was possible, the report concluded. There were some conditions:- the organisation should, however, differ from the old PTT service Viditel;
- no subscription to the basic service;
- use of hybrid systems, PCs and Minitels.
- trigger services like the telephone directory.
The reaction to the report varied from very positive to questionable forecasts. In the magazine I&I, I published an article under the title Infodamned (a variation on the movie Amsterdamned of Paul Verhoeven which had just launched): Viditel had been unable to attract more than 30.000 users in seven years, while Infodam shamelessly projected 720.000 users. Potential investors such as KLM Pension Fund and MIP and the promise of a grant of the Ministry of Economic Affairs stopped the discussion by using investment as a carrot and demanded one plan and one network. On December 13, 1988 Videotex Nederland was founded; even the PTT participated in the venture. By April 1, 1989 the plans of Videotex Nederland were presented and sounded with 500.000 subscribers already more realistic. All systems would be used: Viditel technology, hybrid videotext and PCs and Minitels; only the two-way technology Demos which was under development in Zuid-Limburg should first show its economic feasibility.Organisationally Videotex Nederland followed the Kiosque model without a fixed subscription. Videotex Nederland users could phone in through a buy number and select the service wanted. PTT Telecom took care of telephone and page billing.
On September 1989 Videotex Nederland was presented as a service and started with 80.000 users, of which 30.000 in the public service of Viditel and 50.000 in the closed users groups of companies and organisation. In 1993 no less than 129 million connected minutes were clocked, used by 300.000 users. Chat boxes, relations and erotica were on top of the list, followed by telebanking and the telephone directory.
Although Videotex Nederland showed increased use, the service had competition from bulletin board services and Internet. By 1994 the management of Videotex Nederland was looking for answers: should Videotex Nederland die a natural death or should the users be forced to move over to Internet. For the management it was not easy as the shareholders wanted to stick to the name of Videotex Nederland. In the end Videotex Nederland set up the Internet service World Access. In 1996 Riens Meijer was appointed interim manager of Videotex Nederland with the brief to terminate Videotex Nederland and have World Access merge with the successful service of Planet Internet. On January 1, 1997 the public videotex service Videotex Nederland stopped. In 17 years of videotex service some 1 million people had become acquainted with the service and had tried it, but only only 350.000 people signed up to videotext in the Netherlands; Internet had attracted more than double the amount of users between 1993 and 1997.
Friday, July 27, 2007
My museum of content related artefacts (13)
Today I will present a picture blog, more illustrations than text. With the blog on electronic books I showed a few covers of products, but today I have prepared some 20 CD-i covers and discs from my CD-i collection of 88 artefacts to show the wide range of interests, Philips attempted to cover with this medium. Basically it shows that Philips did not know to select and target a market for the machine.
Encyclopedia. The Compton Encyclopaedia was an international production. The product was also bundled as a CD-ROM when a PC was bought. The Philips interactive encyclopaedia in Dutch was a translated encyclopedia, which first was published on CD-i and later (to recover the investment) on CD-ROM.
Course material. CD-i was a perfect carrier for courses. Again it was a new carrier to package courses on.
Manuals. The CD-i was also demonstrated from the beginning as a manual as it could contain video clips. The Halm company used CD-i to help engineers with troubleshooting. The company hoped to be able to save on flying time for engineers.
Catalogues. The use of CD-i as an electronic catalogue was obvious, especially as video was an extra attraction.
Product promotion. CD-i was also used to promote costly consumer products such as motors. Given the video facility CD-i could recreate the atmosphere needed for promotion like the Harley Davidson Experience.
Culture.
Games.
Movies.
Music.
City marketing.
Medicines.
Childrens discs.
News, events.
Softporn. Philips had lost the Video2000 video standard fight from JVC as it did not allow porn. With CD-i Philips did not object to softporn titles like the one of Tatjana a local Playboy centre fold.
Internet Online. This cover is of one of the last CD-i disc, when there was still hope in the Philips camp that internet would save CD-i with CD-i online.
My favourite. The trial disc Gnomes is very dear to me. The title never reached the market; it was not put on CD-ROM either. The CD-i was an electronic version of a book with drawings about gnomes by the Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet. The CD-i was interesting as it used hotspots to create an experience with young and old.
Blog Posting Number: 824
Tags: digital heritage
Encyclopedia. The Compton Encyclopaedia was an international production. The product was also bundled as a CD-ROM when a PC was bought. The Philips interactive encyclopaedia in Dutch was a translated encyclopedia, which first was published on CD-i and later (to recover the investment) on CD-ROM.
Course material. CD-i was a perfect carrier for courses. Again it was a new carrier to package courses on.
Manuals. The CD-i was also demonstrated from the beginning as a manual as it could contain video clips. The Halm company used CD-i to help engineers with troubleshooting. The company hoped to be able to save on flying time for engineers.
Catalogues. The use of CD-i as an electronic catalogue was obvious, especially as video was an extra attraction.
Product promotion. CD-i was also used to promote costly consumer products such as motors. Given the video facility CD-i could recreate the atmosphere needed for promotion like the Harley Davidson Experience.
Culture.
Games.
Movies.
Music.
City marketing.
Medicines.
Childrens discs.
News, events.
Softporn. Philips had lost the Video2000 video standard fight from JVC as it did not allow porn. With CD-i Philips did not object to softporn titles like the one of Tatjana a local Playboy centre fold.
Internet Online. This cover is of one of the last CD-i disc, when there was still hope in the Philips camp that internet would save CD-i with CD-i online.
My favourite. The trial disc Gnomes is very dear to me. The title never reached the market; it was not put on CD-ROM either. The CD-i was an electronic version of a book with drawings about gnomes by the Dutch artist Rien Poortvliet. The CD-i was interesting as it used hotspots to create an experience with young and old.
Blog Posting Number: 824
Tags: digital heritage
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