Time Machine: Why didn’t Internet on TV take off in 1983?
►http://www.itworld.com/networking/254668/time-machine-why-didnt-internet-tv-take
The AT&T Tech Channel has another set of golden videos from the ’80s - this time, they’re highlighting the Viewtron system which let people access information, news, play games and conduct online banking through a remote-controlled (infra-red) keyboard and connected via telephone modem to a TV set. One of the big hopes for the system was online shopping, but as this AT&T post notes, “one of the online shopping sites had only logged a paltry 11 direct orders.”