What is Telidon? Explore Telidon and its History

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Telidon wins the Touche Ross New Perspectives Award for design excellence and technical superiority.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Infomart “pulls the plug” on the Toronto Teleguide System and removes Telidon terminals from the public.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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