NG
It's a bit of a leap to suggest it's a development of Prestel. Prestel used a 1:1 link over your phone line and could be used for stuff like e-mail. It had a 1200 baud download speed, but only a 75 baud upload speed (slower than most people type) AIUI the 75 baud upload was originally not going to be used and instead DTMF 'touch tones' would have been used hence the 0-9*# menu structure - but when it was clear that text needed to be uploaded too a low bandwidth reverse data channel was added.
Televox etc. just allocated a specific teletext sub-page to the user and allowed remote control of what was seen on that page. It was far more restrictive - and only used the phone call for control, not to carry data. I guess you could say it was capable of some of the similar things - but it's not really a development of Prestel.
Prestel and the other UK videotext systems were definitely ahead of their time. Booking holidays and home banking 'online' in the early-to-mid 80s is something people forget we had the ability to do
noggin
Founding member
Televox seems to be a development of the Prestel system, but was ahead of its time. Nowadays, I'm sure voice command would be the norm, but was a technological marvel back in 1990.
It's a bit of a leap to suggest it's a development of Prestel. Prestel used a 1:1 link over your phone line and could be used for stuff like e-mail. It had a 1200 baud download speed, but only a 75 baud upload speed (slower than most people type) AIUI the 75 baud upload was originally not going to be used and instead DTMF 'touch tones' would have been used hence the 0-9*# menu structure - but when it was clear that text needed to be uploaded too a low bandwidth reverse data channel was added.
Televox etc. just allocated a specific teletext sub-page to the user and allowed remote control of what was seen on that page. It was far more restrictive - and only used the phone call for control, not to carry data. I guess you could say it was capable of some of the similar things - but it's not really a development of Prestel.
Prestel and the other UK videotext systems were definitely ahead of their time. Booking holidays and home banking 'online' in the early-to-mid 80s is something people forget we had the ability to do