Telidon moved from the research labs of the Department of Communication, Communication Research Centre in the late 70s into joint government/industry field trials in the early 80s.

Canada's tests were limited, measured by the number of people given equipment, compared to 1 million free terminals distributed in France. But, the Canadian trails were precisely targeted. Amongst the 23 trials established across the country, there was at least one in every province. And, every carrier was tested, starting with normal, twisted-pair, copper wires, experimental two way coaxial cable services and teletext, which involved inserting interactive text and graphic presentations into the empty space in the broadcast signal known as the vertical blanking interval (VBI). TVO and CBC both tested teletext.

Telidon was a tentative step in the transfer of computer power from central control to the decentralized periphery, from mainframe computers accessed by dumb, text only terminals to computers in every home, office and pocket. Tentative because it showed the benefit of transferring a bit of intelligence to the user's dumb terminal, to handle graphics meeting minimum consumer expectations.  Tentative relative to the rapid replacement of all dumb terminals resulting from the decentralized proliferation of personal computers, starting in the early 80s.

Telidon became an international standard in 1983 with a joint agreement between Canada and the Unitied States called the North American Presentation Level Protocol Syntax aka NAPLPS. In retrospect, it was the beginning of the the end of Telidon in 1985.

Telidon was the last major example of Canada's so called "socialist" government support of private companies competing against the Americans in the international marketplace. 

The Americans considered such subsidies (and free research) to be an unfair trade practice and they were eliminated in 1987 by NAFTA, along with the entire Department of Communications and the Canadian Research Centre, not to mention Telidon.

More recently, in an unpublished memoir of David Parkhill, he relates how the Americans made it clear in 1981 that they would never agree to an international standard that gave Canadian companies a competitive lead over Americans in the international marketplace. The new code had to create a new, level playing field. 

In the end, it was all castles in the sand. The Madison Avenue, corporate, videotex vision of central databases and fancy dumb terminals in homes and offices was steamrolled over by the internet and personal computers from Silicon Valley. The free market, not government/industry/academic subsidized experiments, became the engine of a rapid and widespread digital communication revolution. 

23 Telidon field trials were established in Canada, at least 1 in every province. Each consisted of a central "database", dozens of $25K "information provider systems" to create content and dozens to hundreds of $2K dumb terminals (called Telidon decoders) with modems connected to the phone to view content. 1000s were located in homes and businesses of VIPS and field trial participants. 

The biggest trial was VISTA, a joint venture between Bell Canada, the Department of Communications and Infomart (a subsidiary of TorStar and Southam). 

Vista deployed a dozen "page creation systems" to "information providers" such as media outlets, educators, etc and placed 500 Telidon decoders in urban and rural residences and businesses in Ontario and Quebec. Telidon decoders from other field trials could also access VISTA, bring the total users to well over 1000.

"In 1980/81, Les Tietze, Doug Back, Ron Gosbee and I formed a company called Starside Softworks. We set up a studio/ in the old carpet manufacturing building at 1179A King St., near Dufferin. I knew Les, Doug and Ron from the PhotoElectic Arts Department at the Ontario College of Art. Unlike them, I did not study or teach at OCAD. I worked for the PhotoElectric Arts Foundation, a charity run by Richard Hill, who happened to be the head of the similarly named department at OCAD. Through the foundation, I helped with the Toronto Super 8 Film Festival and the Computer Culture shows at Harbourfront. 

Starside Softworks was a for-profit partnership. I don't recall any written or formal agreement, other than four guys sharing the cost a studio space to work on their projects. 

While Les was working on a Telidon decoder on a card for the Apple II, I was getting to know the computer. It was my first exposure to personal computers. Connected to the Apple II was a Norpak Telidon decoder and RGB monitor. 

Around that time, Bell Canada and the federal government issued a request for proposals from "information providers" for the largest Telidon field trial in Canada, known as VISTA. I submitted a proposal to provide 2,000 pages of content. To support my application, I submitted a Telidon graphic I created with a word processor called Apple Pie on Les's Apple II, using the Norpak decoder to test my code. 

Bell Canada was so awed by the graphic they awarded me a $25,000, 600 lb. Digital Equipment Corporation PDP II, upgraded by Norpak to be a Telidon Information Provider System. 

I recall attending the launch of VISTA and being approached by a stranger named Francis Fox who introduced himself as the Secretary of State. He asked if I was Bill Perry and could he use my graphic to launch the VISTA project. Of course I said yes."

"Too many artists wanted to check it out the Norpak Information Provider System, it wasn't realistic to locate it in my home. I tried the Starside Softworks studio but administering the flow of traffic to accommodate everyone was too much. I also located the machine briefly at ArtCulture Resource Centre through Derek Dowden and Nancy Patterson.  ARC was a gallery more than access centre and I didn’t feel the equipment was safe in the party atmosphere there. 

That's when I approached Trinity to ask if they would administer access and training on the equipment, as per their usual practices for video equipment. That became known as "Telidon at Trinity Square Video". 

The early 80s saw rapid growth in the creation of artist run media arts organizations, including Toronto Community Videotex, Charles St. Video and the Art/Culture Resource Centre. Before Bill Perry's Norpak IPS was located at TSV, it spent a few weeks at the Art/Culture Resource Centre.

The early 80s in the Toronto art community was notable for the number of new "new media" artist-run centres established, including Charles St. Video, Ed Video, The Art/Culture Resource Centre and Toronto Community Videotex, aka InterAccess.

"The government's funding of the Telidon efforts came to an official end on 31 March 1985, at which point $69 million had been spent not counting the revenue expended by Infomart who had made national and international sales in excess of $20M."

Telidon disappeared from Canadian art and culture. The "decoders" required to display the graphics were gone. 8" floppy disks were replaced by 5.25" floppys which were replaced by pocket drives and USB sticks. Telidon/NAPLPS had a temporary second life in the USA as a popular BBS platform and shopping mall information systems. 

In the end, the entire videotex vision was usurped by the unexpected arrival of the personal computer. And, the internet became the international standard. Originally established in the 50s by the US military for industrial, scientific and academic research, the internet became the true international standard, like a global, wild west, colossus, without government subsidies or government/industry oversight, financed solely by consumers.

"In 2014 I met Maiko Tanaka at InterAccess to discuss my participation in an exhibition she was curating (about dead art) called Mean Time To Upgrade. It was the first time I had contact with InterAccess since the 80s. To be honest, I was surprised to find out it still existed"

I explained to Maiko that I had nothing to offer the show. All of my Telidon art was gone. All that was left were some old newspaper clippings. The end of Telidon led me to a new profession in the 80s, i.e. print publishing. 

As Maiko and I were talking, we were going through a couple of boxes she brought out from the IA archives. Therein we found 52, B&W, 4X5 Ric Amis photographs of screens of my videotex documentary about the 1982 Toronto municipal election entitled "ART vs Art".  

The photos became my contribution to Maika's exhibition: photos of interactive screens stuck on the wall like pinned butterflies, in a pattern resembling the Telidon tree structure navigation.  It was an apt metaphor for state of Telidon art." 

With all due respect to Jordon Pearson and Motherboard, this is an example of non-investigative journalism.  I don't think the journalist investigated his conclusion and by the time he realized it was wrong, he had a deadline to meet.

100's of Glenn Howarth's Telidon artworks are recovered from 5.25" floppy discs by John Durno, Head of Library Systems at the University of Victoria is tasked with recovering Telidon art from floppy disks belonging to Canadian artist Glenn Howarth.  Tools developed by John will be used recover art from dozens of 5.25" disks of other artists.

According to Bill Perry "John is a modern day pioneer of Telidon technology"

In 2017, a 35-year-old VHS recording of 72 minutes of Bill Perry's videotex work was discovered in the Artexte archives in Montreal. Included was hundreds of graphics and almost all of his videotex documentary entitled "ART vs Art", about the 21 day campaign/performance "A Hummer For Mayor" by VideoCaberet and the Hummer Sisters, during the 1982 Toronto municipal election. Artexte made a video documentary about the discovery entitled Around Computerese: The Electronic Media Magazine.

The analog video was recovered from the tape by Vtape, who went on to do an excellent job of recovering video from 32 more tapes from the early 80s.

#telidon is an Instagram social media campaign celebrating the organization’s 35th Anniversary and the little known Canadian technology that started it all, Telidon. Each week from April - June we will post a still/video created using Telidon on our Instagram account, @interaccessTo. Follow along as we map the history of Telidon technology and explore its central role in the founding of InterAccess and its influence on Canadian media art practice."

It is a story with legs. Masterpieces of  computer art were created in the early 80s when an unheard number of emerging and established Canadian artist were encouraged to get creative with Telidon.  Dozens of artists  used Telidon technology to create video or videotex ( interactive) art. 

Then it all disappeared, with the exception of a single videotape of Paul Petro's "Canadian Artists and Telidon" and miscellaneous print reproductions of Telidon graphics.

As recently as 2015 media pundits were lamenting the loss of this treasure trove of Canadian creativity. Given that disks and tapes are made of magnetic oxide which has a shelf life of 15 to 20 years, it was assumed there was no hope to recover anything from 35+ year old media.

Then, almost simultaneously, 100s of graphics by two of Canada's most prolific Telidon artists were "discovered" in archives, one in Montreal and the other at the University of Victoria. 

This challenged the assumption that Telidon art was lost and a few intrepid artists began searching for more art on floppy disks and videotapes in organizational archives and personal collections.

At present, we have located AND safely recovered over 10,000 Telidon graphics found on about 130 floppy disks and 33 videotapes created by more than 40 artists almost 40 years ago.