AT&T Archives: Electronic Information Systems (1979)

New AT&T Archive videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at http://techchannel.att.com

The Electronic Information Service (also called videotex) was the Bell System's bid in 1979 at creating, basically, the internet, though outside of the actual internet (which, at this time, existed in academic circles, and USENET had also just been created).

Bell had been in the business of data communications from the start — going back to the 1930s. But the company framed their computerized EIS not as much as a communications tool as an information feed, primarily for distributing the phone book and some headlines/sports scores over phone lines to a terminal. This system was rolled out in a few select markets as a test. It would later be refined, and somewhat improved, into a different system called Viewtron.

The system launched the same year as Compu-Serve, and it was one of several nascent services to attempt to bring data communications to the consumers, rather than just businesses or academia. And navigating this industry was a tricky proposition; this kind of service was vehemently opposed by newspapers in many areas, who thought it might supplant their business — and their advertiser dollars. Which is a debate that's still current, more than 30 years later.

Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ