Ads for the American service Time Teletext (1981-1983).
Tag Archives: 1982
Keyfax was the US version of the British Ceefax teletext. It was launched in 1982 but was shut down already by 1984, partly due to problems with getting the British teletext decoders approved in USA. Instead, Keyfax became a videotex service in Chicago and changed from the British standard to the American NAPLPS. But that failed too and Keyfax went bust in 1986. More info.
Post updated in 2024.
An interactive videotex art work, part of A Hummer’s campaign to run for mayor of Toronto, 1982. A Hummer ended up at 2nd place with 10% of the votes. More here.
Scott E Fahlman suggests a use of :) and :( in September, 1982. This happened on a bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. It caught on pretty fast, and in November there were already several variations.
There are many earlier examples of smilies, but this is likely what popularized emoticons as we know them today.
In November 1981 in UK, Kenneth Baker, the Minister for Information Technology, proclaimed 1982 as “Information Technology Year, IT-82.” to support for the use of IT, like teletext and viewdata. Via
Back to Nature by Bob Carr, 1982. This is the C64-version of the game that he released for the PET in 1980.