Complete Telidon Timeline

A Timeline of Key Telidon Events

Telidon was a networked computer graphic system developed in a lab by the Canadian government, a decade before the World Wide Web. Ahead of its time, it enabled users to interact with information from home using televisions connected to phone lines and special Telidon hardware. Throughout the 1980s, artists experimented with Telidon, creating some of Canada’s first computer art.

1969

Canada's Department of Communications is established

Headed by Canada's first Minister of Communications, Eric Kierans, the Department of Communications begins research and development on Telidon in collaboration with Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC).
Norpak Ltd.'s MK1 model.
A product photograph of Norpak Ltd.'s MK1, an early Telidon terminal which included a regular television, a Telidon decoder, and a keypad.
1975

Hardware development

The CRC contracts Ontario-based data transmission company, Norpak Ltd., to develop interactive colour display technology that would become Telidon hardware.
Telidon's earliest developers stand around a Telidon terminal.
Herb Brown (left) with his research team, Bob Warburton, Bill Sawchuk, Doug O’Brien, and John Storey. They are responsible for Telidon’s earliest development at the Canadian Communications Research Centre.
1978

Public announcement

At its first public demonstration of a Telidon terminal, the Department of Communications announces a 4-year Telidon development program.
1979

Creating content

Instructions for the Telidon Videotex System are published, providing detailed descriptions of the code used to create images on a Telidon terminal.
1980

Artists discover Telidon

Animation artist Pierre Moretti creates the first Telidon artwork with support from the National Film Board of Canada.
1980

Hardware production ramps up

Norpak Ltd.’s MKIII decoder panels emerge from the production line at their plant in Pakenham, Ontario.
1980

Marketing the system

The Government of Canada begins releasing promotional publications that explain Telidon to potential public users.
1981

Project Ida

The first public field trial of Telidon services, Project Ida, begins in Manitoba, conducted by the Manitoba Telephone System. The project is named after the province's first woman telephone operator in the 1880s, Ida Cates.
Communications Minister, Francis Fox, and Bell Canada chairman, A. J. de Grandpre demoing Telidon.
Bell Canada chairman A. J. de Grandpre (left) and Communications Minister Francis Fox (right) open the Videotex ‘81 conference with a Telidon demonstration.
1981

Videotex '81

Videotex ‘81, a home video information conference is held at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. Demonstrations of how television sets can be turned into Telidon information terminals are provided to the public. Bell Canada’s VISTA, the largest of the Telidon field trials, launches the same year.
1981

Maclean's on Telidon

Maclean’s Magazine publishes "A clearer picture for Telidon", an article that details the technology's major funding advances including a commitment from 1981 to 1983 by the Government of Canada of $27.5 million.
Two formally dressed men hold the Touche Ross award.
Robert M. Rennie (left), Vice Chairman of Touche Ross International, presents Communications Minister Francis Fox (right), with the Touche Ross New Perspectives Award.
1981

Award-winning design

Telidon wins the Touche Ross New Perspectives Award for design excellence and technical superiority.
A digitally created poster with the text Open House and a rudimentary image of a television.
A poster promoting an open house at Trinity Square Video to show Toronto's arts community the new technology available at the centre.
1981

Telidon at Trinity Square Video

Telidon at Trinity Square Video (TSV) is launched by Computerese, an electronic magazine created by Bill Perry. An IPS II workstation lent to Perry by Bell Canada is set up at TSV, providing artists with the opportunity to experiment with a Telidon terminal for the first time in Toronto. A series of workshops taught by Ric Amis, who was then the Chair of TSV, Robin Collyer who was the Vice-Chair, and Bill Perry provide guided instruction for new Telidon users.
1981

IPS II workstation

Artist interest in Telidon gains momentum. Artists, Nina Beveridge, Bill Perry, Paul Petro, and Geoffrey Shea, united by their interest in Telidon, join together to create the organization Toronto Community-Videotex.
1981

Telidon enters the New York City art scene

The National Endowment for the Arts in the United States funds a videotex workshop at New York University’s Alternate Media Center that invites artists to use Norpak Ltd.’s Telidon equipment to create works for display over videotex systems in the U.S. and Canada.
1982

Project Grassroots

Project Ida evolves into a partnership between Manitoba Telephone and Infomart, Canada's main videotex software and service provider, to create Project Grassroots. Grassroots runs on geographically distributed modems instead of cable links and is aimed specifically at farmers, providing weather reports, agrochemicals notices, and links to live commodities pricing. Grassroots grows into a system that distributes 20,000 pages of information created by Infomart to farmers. Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Grassroots expands to serve Alberta, Saskatchewan, northern Ontario, and in 1985, the northern United States.
1982

Toronto Teleguide

Infomart, a videotex service provider based in Toronto, launches Toronto Teleguide, offering tourist and consumer information through Telidon terminals placed in public spaces throughout the city, including malls and libraries.
1982

Canada Council

The Canada Council For The Arts (CCA) enlists Trinity Square Video to create a 72 page Telidon information package for the Cantel Telidon field trial. This work is carried out by Bill Perry, Ric Amis, and Robin Collyer.
1983

Toronto Community-Videotex is incorporated

Toronto Community-Videotex, which would later be renamed InterAccess, is founded by Nina Beveridge, Paul Petro, Bill Perry, and Geoffrey Shea as a resource centre for artists to access Telidon equipment.
1983

Sao Paulo Biennale

Telidon works by 11 artists, curated by Glenn Howarth and Paul Petro, are featured in the Sao Paulo Biennale exhibition in Brazil.
1983

Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Telidon is used at the Third General Assembly of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island.
1984

Toronto Teleguide is cancelled

Infomart “pulls the plug” on the Toronto Teleguide System and removes Telidon terminals from the public.
A Telidon image of a palm tree on an orange background with black text.
An example of a page available at a teleguide station in Los Angeles. Telidon terminals were positioned around the city to help communicate information to attendees.
1984

Summer Olympic Games

Telidon graphics are deployed during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games hosted in Los Angeles, with art direction by Don Lindsay.
1985

Government funding is pulled

Government support of Telidon officially ends in March 1985. The Department of Communications organizes and hosts the Videotex Canada meeting in Toronto where over 450 participants discuss the end of federal involvement in Telidon and the birth of a self-sufficient industry. Industry participants also meet and form a new videotex industry association.
1985

Art is Communications

Paul Petro and Geoffrey Shea curate "Art is Communications" at A Space in Toronto. It is one of the largest presentations of Telidon art in history.
The front of a brochure for the Canada Pavilion at the 1986 World Exposition.
The front cover of a brochure promoting the Canada Pavilion at the 1986 World Exposition. Built for the Expo, the Pavilion was designed to resemble an immense ocean liner.
1986

Expo 86

Telidon artworks are featured in Expo 86 in Vancouver, British Columbia. The flagship building of the World Exposition 1986 is the Canada Pavilion, which features national technological innovations in aviation, cinema, communications, and undersea research.
1986

Venice Biennale

Telidon works by Canadian artists are to be presented at the Venice Biennale exhibition, "Technology and Infomatics". They are never exhibited due to technical challenges.
1987

Toronto Community-Videotex is renamed InterAccess

Toronto Community-Videotex is renamed InterAccess reflecting the centre’s expanded programming in art and technology, more generally.
1988

Prodigy Communications Corporation brings NAPLPs to 1 million users

The online service Prodigy launches in the United States and becomes one of the most successful applications of Telidon/NAPLPS technology. Prodigy accrues over 1 million paid subscribers who can access networked services, including news, weather, shopping, bulletin boards, games, polls, expert columns, banking, stocks, and travel.
2000

Dead as a doornail

Telidon, as an art medium, declared “dead as a doornail” by InterAccess co-founder Geoffrey Shea due to the lack of technology capable of decoding and presenting the artworks.
Tanaka stands looking at photographs of the artwork ART vs Art by Bill Perry.
Curator Maiko Tanaka is documented viewing the installation of Bill Perry's "ART vs. Art" at InterAccess's 9 Ossington Ave. location in Toronto.
2014

Mean Time to Upgrade

Curator Maiko Tanaka discovers photo documentation by Ric Amis of Bill Perry’s 1982 Telidon work, "ART vs. Art: A Videotex Documentary" and includes the reconstruction in the exhibition, "Mean Time to Upgrade" presented at InterAccess. The exhibition foregrounds the challenges presented by artworks created using technologies that have since become obsolete.
A photograph of a desk with Telidon equipment, which includes two monitors and a drawing tablet.
Glenn Howarth's Telidon terminal and workstation, drawn from the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections and University Archives.
2015

Telidon artworks restored at the University of Victoria

John Durno recovers Telidon art by Glenn Howarth from floppy disks in the collection of the University of Victoria Archives. These works are subsequently included in the exhibition, "The Averted Eye Sees: The Life and Work of Glenn Howarth" presented at the University of Victoria.
2015

Telidon returns to the media

Vice’s Jordan Pearson publishes “The Original Net Artists,” an article about Telidon art, as well as a short documentary called “The Lost Art of Canada’s Doomed Pre-Internet Web”.
A 1980s era computer monitor and keyboard.
A promotional image of Microtel's VTX 202 from 1982. The system included a colour video display, keyboard, decoder, and modem.
2016

Saved from the trash heap

John Durno acquires a Microtel VTX 202 moments before it is discarded by the Radio and Television Museum in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The machine becomes essential to restoration efforts.
A photo of a stack of floppy disks.
Floppy disks containing Glenn Howarth’s Telidon artwork held in the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections and University Archives. Image courtesy of John Durno.
2017

Back from the dead

John Durno recovers and restores numerous Telidon artworks, including works exhibited at the 1986 Venice Biennale and 1983 Sao Paulo Biennale.
2018

Celebrating 35 years of InterAccess

In May of this year John Durno travels to Toronto to present "Excavating Telidon: Reconstructing Videotex Art in 5 Projects" as part of InterAccess’s 35th anniversary celebrations.
2018

#telidon

InterAccess launches the exhibition "#telidon" on Instagram, which includes Telidon images captured on 35mm scans created by Paul Petro, found in the IA archives.
2019

The next chapter

InterAccess is awarded funding from Digital Museums Canada to create an online exhibition dedicated to the Telidon story.
2022

Equipment found at Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

A research trip to Ottawa by curator Shauna Jean Doherty results in the uncovering of Telidon equipment and print materials from Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation. The museum’s Curator of Communication Technologies, Tom Everett, is critical to this discovery.
A TV monitor on a plinth with a palm tree in the background from 2023.
Photo documentation from the physical exhibition of "Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story" curated by Shauna Jean Doherty. Photo by Maksym Chupov-Ryabtsev.
2023

InterAccess celebrates 40 years

From September 6 to October 21, 2023 InterAccess hosts a physical exhibition titled, "Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story". The exhibition includes a display of archival Telidon equipment, interactive Telidon artworks designed and programmed by John Durno, and interviews with artists recorded on cassette tapes. The opening reception welcomes Telidon artists, many of whom haven't seen each other in decades.
2025

Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story launches online

The digital exhibition, "Remember Tomorrow: A Telidon Story", funded by Digital Museums Canada launches, marking a new era in Telidon's history.
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