Margate, Kent-based Vine Micros Ltd was demonstrating VinetexT, its new do it yourself teletext transmission system which is designed for organisations such as hotels who want to provide an information channel to guests or cable companies that want to provide a specialist information service to viewers. It works along the same lines as broadcast teletext services and enables the service provider to put together up to 50,000 pages of information on a personal computer and transmit them onto a television screen. The software card plugs into the back of a personal computer to enable it to output a UHF and composite video signal. When this is connected up to a teletext television, graphical data can be broadcast to all users. The product offers other features of the broadcast teletext service such as hidden text, flashing text and subtitles can be overlaid onto video. It can also take video and audio signals and transmit its own images from television or video for example. The VinetexT System is managed from within Windows by the VinetexT User Interface and individual pages that can combine both graphics and text can be typed onto the VinetexT window and then saved onto disk. Then a selection of pages may be sent out and information can be automatically updated and amended at any time. Vine recommends at least an 80386 processor with 4Mb RAM and 5Mb disk space, Windows 3.1 installed and MS-DOS 3.3. It will be out in July at #1,250 for the card and software. A networked version may follow.
