Fun find - Northern Telecom Displayphone

The Alex was Canada's/Northern Tel's response to France's Minitel system. It was introduced much later than the Displayphones and was more like a terminal than a telephone with a screen/CRT. The Displayphone has a permenantly exposed (about) 5" screen, beside it is a regular telephone handset, the QWERTY keyboard is in a drawer beneath the entire unit. AT&T, ITT, Canon all had similar products for the executive who needed access to on-line systems without sacrificing desktop space. These were the first attempts at convergence. Now the Northern Telecom Meridian Version 1 was very special since it was a like a client/X-terminal with a built-in phone. The original Meridian product had Lotus Notes-type features. It was too far ahead of the market, so the inventory was bulldozed under in a land fill near Ottawa, Ontario in the 1980s. Displayphones are simply terminals and telephones in the same box so you can still easily find them. Kevin Stumpf - The Nostalgic Technophile - Unusual Systems www.nostalgictechnophile.com - 519.744.2900 EST/EDT (GMT - 5) ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Mahoney <bmahoney2001(a)sympatico.ca> To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org> Sent: Saturday, August 19, 2000 9:05 PM Subject: Re: Fun find - Northern Telecom Displayphone by front. except