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Television Text: first experiences with a new medium
Author(s) -
Jackson Richard
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
british journal of educational technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.79
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-8535
pISSN - 0007-1013
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8535.1979.tb00382.x
Subject(s) - alphanumeric , paragraph , computer science , newspaper , window (computing) , field (mathematics) , simple (philosophy) , multimedia , world wide web , advertising , philosophy , mathematics , epistemology , pure mathematics , business , programming language
New information services are becoming available for home users. These use the broadcast television channels—as in Teletext—and the public telephone network—as in Viewdata—to make information in the form of text and diagrams available on the screens of domestic television receivers. The viewer has a keyboard so that he or she can choose what to see and when to see it. Such services are expected to grow and further sources of information will become available which use similar display facilities. The main features of these new systems are outlined and an experimental home terminal equipment is described which has been used to explore possible future development in this field. The displayed text pages are currently limited to a maximum of 960 alphanumeric characters or to simple diagrams. This represents a very small window with which to observe what may be a very large amount of information. Normal search and scanning techniques developed for books and newspapers do not necessarily apply. The paper outlines the methods currently used and their limitations and describes possible further technological development which may be helpful. Other features of the display, such as the restricted paragraph size and the free availability of coloured text are also commented upon. It is concluded that television text is an attractive medium which will play an important role in future communications. New studies of the human factors involved in this medium would be highly desirable.