User:Santanaquinta

LatestBold text/Teleputer Draft Article

ATeleputer is a personal communications device that combines television, personal computing and telecommunications. It was originally invented in 1980 at the beginning of the IT Age and represented a fusion or convergence of the then business electronics [computing and telecommunications] with mass communication consumer electronics as represented by television. It highlighted the boundary between the digital world of computing and the then analogue world of television. All the boundaries would disappear over the next 30 years. The teleputer was pre-IBM PC, pre-Microsoft and over a decade pre-Internet/www. It was conceived as a consumer electronics device but rarely used as such.

History

The Teleputer was invented in the UK by Michael Aldrich who had invented online shopping in 1979. The shopping system had used a floor-standing 26" modified colour television as the home terminal. A simple-to-use home computer was needed providing television, home information processing and telecommunications. This was the first teleputer. To a 14" portable colour television was added a plinth, two 500KB Floppy Disks and a keyboard. The plinth contained a Zilog Z 80 microprocessor with up to 128KB running a modified version of CP/M. Also in the plinth was the LUCY chip set from the Mullard Division of Philips which included a 1200/1200bps modem,an auto-dialler and a character generator for colour characters and graphics. The LUCY chip set had been developed for UK videotex television. The teleputer was fully functional as a colour television, a colour home computer, and a networking dumb or intelligent terminal. Future models were planned with laser and DVD disks and as a network device on future broadband local loop cable TV systems.

The teleputer was a key element in a schema for a wired city. There were three parts; online shopping/home banking/teleworking; a multi-function home information system which would also control home electronic utility devices; and interactive broadband cable TV local loop systems which would distribute cable TV channels to the home, provide interactive data services and telephone.

From 1981 the teleputer was manufactured and sold mainly in the UK. Teleputers were an instant success and received much favourable publicity. Two versions were produced, one with local computing capability and one without. They were sold into the business market where their telecom capability, colour screens and sheer versatility were put to work on private networks. However there was no consumer electronic market because of the cost of the teleputer, the non-existence of consumer data services and the delay in building the new local loop systems. Teleputers were used in homes for teleworking but they were purchased by companies and supplied to employees. The business teleputers had their tuners removed because employers did not want staff watching television. Teleputers were used for a host of innovative applications mainly in the UK. One of the more unusual applications was as management workstations on the Siberian Gas Pipeline in 1983 where a Cyrillic version was used.

In 2004 George Gilder of Forbes.com used the word teleputer to describle a converged cell phone.

Around the world there are reputedly many converged or semi-converged devices some called teleputers. Most are cell-phone based. These may well become the personalised communications devices of the future. 30 years on from 1980 true convergence may be imminent.

References

Santanaquinta (talk) 14:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC) Santanaquinta (talk) 07:28, 31 July 2009 (UTC)