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.

Canada's first Minister of Communications Eric Kierans (left) and his wife of 65 years, Teresa Whelan (right).
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).

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

An advertisement for Norpak Ltd.'s IPS II Telidon creation terminal, complete with a pen and stylus input.
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.

A still from "Snap Shots" a Telidon artwork by American artist, Mary Beams created at the Alternate Media Center.
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.

A still from a commercial promoting the launch of Toronto Teleguide, featuring Teleguide's General Manager, Chris Smith.
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.
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.

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.

A woman accesses the National Job Bank database via a Telidon terminal in a Montreal public library.
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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.