Prestel

In the early 1960s, engineers working at the General Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill experimented with accessing computers remotely using telephone lines. These experiments led to the development of the 'Viewdata' system in the 1970s.

Viewdata was developed by Post Office Telecommunications (later British Telecom) and launched as 'Prestel' in 1979. Rival brands marketed by other companies emerged later. The technology allowed businesses and home consumers to download hundreds of thousands of pages of information from a computer data bank.

The Prestel system proved popular with the travel and financial industries. Banks were able to offer a prototype form of 'online banking' and British Rail published timetable information using Prestel. The ability to access online information in this way made this technology the forerunner of the modern Internet. Unlike the Internet however, it was purely text based and could not display pictures.

This illustrated promotional booklet provides customer information about Prestel including how it works, the cost and how to order it. The differences between Prestel and the Oracle and Ceefax services is also explained.