Consumer electronics: Americanizing videotex: Even as U.S. companies prepare to enter the videotex marketplace, what the consumer wants is not yet clear

Discusses the development of videotex in the USA. The US companies have to finances videotex ventures almost completely on their own, and each has a different concept of what the technology should look like. The most controversial standards problem has been how to transmit and create text and graphics on the screen. The British, French and Canadians each invented their own approach, which they have tried to convince US manufacturers to adopt. In 1981 AT&T announced its own standard called presentation-level protocol. Future commercial services are also discussed.