Picture Prestel was an experimental feature of the videotex service Prestel. It was demonstrated in 1980, while Prestel was already struggling to attract users. Meanwhile, videotex inventions with better graphics started to emerge. Telidon and NAPLPS had vector graphics, Minitel had better textmode graphics, and CAPTAIN had photographics.
Picture Prestel was never really meant to be implemented, at least not until the end of the 80s.
Dromeda (aka Andromeda) by Bob Carr, 1980. PETSCII-animation running on the PET computer.
Teletext page from 1980 recovered by the Teletext archeologist, @grim_fandango.
Teletext graphics by Richard Gingras, 1980. This service was called Now and ran on KCET-TV. It was part of a collaboration between CBS, NBC and PBS to test the French Antiope standard for teletext. The project was supported by Télédiffusion de France.
Images from Gingras’ website, which is only partly archived on archive.org. There’s an interview with Gingras about his teletext work here.
Post updated 2024.
BBC’s CEEFAX service, as detailed by the index printed in the Radio Times, 2-8 February 1980. Via.
Rain Dance, a demo for Commodore PET made by Bob Carr, 1980. Good stuff!
Sinclair ZX80 character set, including nonprintable characters (shown as questionmarks) and BASIC keywords.
