What is "videotex"

n. Any of various early information retrieval services, such as viewdata and Teletext systems, that delivered pages of computerized text to users on request.

Videotex (or "interactive videotex") was one of the earliest implementations of an end-user information system. From the late 1970s to early 2010s, it was used to deliver information (usually pages of text) to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal.

In a strict definition, videotex is any system that provides interactive content and displays it on a video monitor such as a television, typically using modems to send data in both directions. A close relative is teletext, which sends data in one direction only, typically encoded in a television signal. All such systems are occasionally referred to as viewdata. Unlike the modern Internet, traditional videotex services were highly centralized.

Videotex in its broader definition can be used to refer to any such service, including the Internet, bulletin board systems, online service providers, and even the arrival/departure displays at an airport. This usage is no longer common.

With the exception of Minitel in France, videotex elsewhere never managed to attract any more than a very small percentage of the universal mass market once envisaged. By the end of the 1980s its use was essentially limited to a few niche applications.