ABSTRACT
In 1972 the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Television Authority, the television (TV) receiver manufacturers and the British Post Office jointly discussed a standard for the transmission and format of pages of text to be displayed on a modified colour TV receiver. Development of systems proceeded along two paths. The first system was called Teletext, and the Ceefax and Oracle television services are operated by the BBC and Independent Television Authority respectively. Meanwhile the second system for text display, named Viewdata, was being developed by the British Post Office. In Britain, television entertainment fields are transmitted 50 times per second, and Teletext codes are included as bursts of data fitted into a small unoccupied part of each field. The course of future events may be substantially modified by the integration of home computers into Viewdata-like systems.
