Date   : Sun, 18 Jan 2009 12:09:56 +0000
From   : robert@... (Rob)
Subject: Prestel

2009/1/18 Mark Usher <mu.list@...>:
> Surely Prestel wasn't in the average home that much, more banks and travel
> agents - although it was on everyone's wish list!
>

My first encounters were by using a terminal (actually a standard TV
with integrated adapter) that was kept on the front desk at Stockport
Referance Library - I'd pop in on the way home from school..  I think
I was one of the very few people who even knew what it was, never mind
used it, although I'm sure there were a few notices up advising people
of it's availability.(Occasionally I'd have to show the librarian on
duty how to use it!!)

Subsequently I got my own account, but as I only had a 300baud modem
(GPO Modem 2B) I had to get an account on the London machines, as they
had a special text-only (no graphics!) 300baud number, and pay
long-distance calls...

It was definitely the intent at that time, at the turn of the 1980s,
that domestic, home users would use TVs with built in adapters.  Much
like Teletext - both were a hideously expensive optional extra at the
time.  Teletext won.  It was only with the advent of Micronet that
home computers became the dominant means of access.