A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct from, but functionally similar to, discussion forums on the World Wide Web. Newsreader software is used to read the content of newsgroups.
NAPLPS is a graphics language for use originally with videotex and teletext services. NAPLPS was developed from the Telidon system developed in Canada, with a small number of additions from AT&T Corporation. The basics of NAPLPS were later used as the basis for several other microcomputer-based graphics systems.
Telidon was a videotex/teletext service developed by the Canadian Communications Research Centre (CRC) during the late 1970s and supported by commercial enterprises led by Infomart in the early 1980s. Most work on the system ended after 1985, having failed to build critical mass.
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 to a user in computer-like format, typically to be displayed on a television or a dumb terminal.
Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun, Quebec, in Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.
The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes, Brittany, France.
An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup.
Max is a Canadian French language specialty channel owned by Remstar Media Group, a division of Remstar. The channel primarily broadcasts entertainment programming, focusing on scripted television series and films.
Vidéotron is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Owned by Quebecor, it primarily serves Quebec and Ottawa, as well as the Francophone communities of New Brunswick and some parts of Eastern Ontario. Its principal competitors are Bell Canada and Telus Communications.
BCE Inc., an abbreviation of its full name Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., is a publicly traded Canadian holding company for Bell Canada, which includes telecommunications providers and various mass media assets under its subsidiary Bell Media Inc. Founded through a corporate reorganization in 1983, when Bell Canada, Northern Telecom, and other related companies all became subsidiaries of Bell Canada Enterprises Inc., it is one of Canada's largest corporations. The company is headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the Verdun borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Noovo is a Canadian French-language terrestrial television network owned by the Bell Media subsidiary of BCE Inc. The network has five owned-and-operated and three affiliated stations throughout Quebec. It can also be seen over-the-air in some bordering markets in the provinces of Ontario and New Brunswick, and in some other parts of Canada on cable television or direct broadcast satellite.
Super Écran is a Canadian premium television network owned by Bell Media. It airs a mix of commercial-free films and television series. Films are primarily sourced from the United States and Canada, while the television series mostly consist of original series and programs from HBO and Showtime in the United States.
Canada ranks as the 21st in the world for Internet usage with 31.77 million users as of July 2016 (est), making up 89.8% of the population. According to Harvard researchers, Canada has some of the lowest internet standards among OECD countries, as a result of high costs and slow internet speeds.
A choke exchange is a telephone exchange designed to handle many simultaneous call attempts to telephone numbers of that exchange. Choke exchanges are typically used to service telephone numbers of talk radio caller and contest lines of radio stations and event ticket vendors.
The line information database (LIDB) is a collection of commercial databases used in the United States and Canada by telephone companies to store and retrieve Calling Name Presentation (CNAM) data used for caller ID services. In Canada, it is common for the client to apply their own Caller ID information, and this is allowed, provided the regulations regarding spoofing and fraud are not violated. The databases map telephone numbers to 15-character strings of caller names. Class 5 telephone switches, which provide end-office services in exchange areas, use the Signaling System 7 (SS7) signaling protocol to query the database.
Usenet, USENET, or "in full", User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980. Users read and post messages to one or more topic categories, known as newsgroups. Usenet resembles a bulletin board system (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the Internet forums that have become widely used. Discussions are threaded, as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.
The AT&T Sceptre was a graphical terminal launched by AT&T in October 1983, used for the two largest deployments of videotex in the United States: Knight Ridder's Viewtron service in Florida, and the Los Angeles Times' Gateway service in Southern California. The Sceptre was the basic bit of home kit needed for the services, to paint NAPLPS-standard geometrically-specified pages to the screen.
Caller Name Presentation (CNAP) or Caller Name Delivery (CNAM) is used in US-based telephone networks to provide name identification of the calling party. The CNAM information is most often displayed in Caller ID. The information could be the person's name or a company name. The caller's name can also be blocked and display “restricted”, or if technical failures occur “not available”.
Started in 1983, Boston CitiNet was a local online service developed by Applied Videotex Systems, Inc. of Belmont, Massachusetts. The service allowed modem-equipped personal computer users to dial-in and access a range of information and messaging services including chat, forums, email and a variety of content. There were several other companies offering paid/subscription services as the time like The Source, CompuServe and Boston-based Delphi. Boston Citinet was unique since it was free to access and was supported by advertising. Messaging services such as email and chat required registration and a monthly fee of $9.95 - an early example of the now popular freemium business model.
Transpac, also written TRANSPAC, was a French public data network that operated from the December 1978 to June 2012.
