A program could arrive through the telephone instead of on a cassette. Micronet 800 offered home-computer owners software, news and messages through Prestel, British Telecom’s viewdata network.
The names describe different parts of the arrangement. Prestel supplied the wider service and connection infrastructure. Micronet was an area aimed at microcomputer users, with material and facilities prepared for that audience.
Pages to read, programs to download
Acorn User’s April 1983 launch report explains the process for a BBC owner: load the modem software, connect through the telephone and provide a password. The user could browse programs and transfer one into the computer’s memory, avoiding a typed listing.
Some programs were free; others had a charge. The report also describes access to Prestel’s broader pages and warns that subscription, connection and software charges would appear on the telephone bill. A “free” program therefore did not imply a cost-free session. (Acorn User 9, “Micro database links to Prestel”.)
The screen was a terminal
Viewdata presented pages through terminal software rather than the later web’s browser-and-website model. A home computer could act as that terminal and, with appropriate software, receive executable material as telesoftware.
Contemporary Micronet promotion grouped software with news, user-group information, education and other services. Its 1985 advertising also emphasised the identity number and password as the way into a personal service. The attraction was not only obtaining another game: a user could return to information and communication facilities through the same connection.
A different route from broadcast teletext
The telephone connection matters. Broadcast teletext sends pages as part of a television signal; a dial-up session lets the subscriber send requests back through the connection. Related-looking pages do not make the two distribution arrangements identical.
The digital-distribution history places Micronet beside other ways programs travelled before widespread domestic internet access. Firebird and Telecomsoft show another part of BT’s software activity, but selling packaged games was a different job from keeping a telephone information service running.
Micronet’s promise was immediate access from home. Its practical experience still depended on a modem, suitable software, an account and time spent connected.
Sources
- “Micro database links to Prestel”, Acorn User 9, April 1983: contemporary launch report and subscriber costs.
- “Netting personal computer”, Viewdata and Teletext, volume 6 number 1: launch-period coverage and advertisement.
- Micronet advertisement, Your Computer, June 1985, p. 30; archived original advert and contextual commentary. The advert supplies the identity/password claim; later commentary is not treated as a period witness.