Unusual software carriers. (Was :Vinyl Data- Classic Computers )

On 07/10/2008 22:36, John Foust wrote: I don't know of any exactly like that, but here in the UK, the BBC provided some "telesoftware" on high-numbered teletext pages, encoded using the CET (Council for Educational Technology) standard, the same as for Prestel (see wikipedia). There were some trials with software for other machines, but almost all the broadcast telesoftware was for the BBC Microcomputer, not surprisingly, for which there were at least two teletext adapters (the original Acorn one and later one from a third party company called Morley Electronics). The teletext adapters connect to a BBC Micro via its 1MHZ expansion bus. Most of the BBC telesoftware was linked to their "Making the Most of the Micro" TV series. There was much more telesoftware on PRESTEL, which was a dial-up viewdata-based information service; 1200 baud downstream and 75 baud upstream. Much of it was on Micronet800 (the home pages, to use a modern term, were 3-digit numbers) and Viewfax258 -- I had some on both, as well as some development pages of my own a few levels under page 500 (IIRC) -- but quite a lot of it cost money. Pages could carry a charge, and even "free" programs cost (in terms of the telephone charges, albeit at low local call rates) but it was quite popular amongst micro users. -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York