On Jun 14, 21:54, Jules Richardson wrote: a related to <pedant> Strictly speaking, "teletext" is broadcast, the generic term is "viewdata" :-) </pedant> upstream, Correct. The idea was to make most use of bandwidth with the technology of the early 1980s. Most of the data went from a central host to a terminal; what went back was mostly typed (page numbers, data entry fields, email), and few people regularly exceed 7 cps. There were special ports running normal symmetric 1200 half duplex and full duplex for "Information Providers" on a machine called Duke, but ordinary users didn't have access to Duke, or those ports. Data available included train and airline timetables, news, weather, lots of microcomputer stuff including "telesoftware", and all sorts of other things. There were quite a few other viewdata services besides Prestel. Some large businesses used viewdata, a few bulletin boards did, the Open University, some banks, and it was widely used by travel agents -- there was a special system run by a consortium for clearing holiday bookings. Derivatives included the French Minitel service, Germany's Bildschirmtext, and Canada had something too. The last commercial viewdata system I know of (Bank of Scotland HOBS service) finally closed last month (though it may still be running for special purposes). It would seem that there is little point in finishing off the rough edges on my X-Windows Prestel terminal software ;-) -- Pete Peter Turnbull Network Manager University of York