What does viewdata mean?
Viewdata is chiefly a British historical term for an interactive electronic information service that displayed information on a television or dedicated terminal. Users typically connected a keyboard-equipped device to a telephone line, selected a number or menu option, and received pages of text and simple graphics on the screen. Viewdata could provide timetables, weather reports, product information, directories, reference material, and other searchable data. It became associated with British services in the early 1980s and is often remembered as an important precursor to the World Wide Web, although it was limited by telephone connections, modest screen capacity, and comparatively slow access. The word can also refer broadly to the information displayed through such systems. Today it is mostly encountered in historical accounts of computing, broadcasting, and telecommunications. Its continued presence in the language recalls a period when people first explored electronic databases from home or public terminals, well before ordinary web browsing became commonplace.
nounAn interactive electronic information service that displayed pages of text and graphics on a television or terminal, usually over a telephone connection. In modern historical usage, it refers especially to the British services developed during the 1980s as predecessors to the World Wide Web.
- An interactive, television-based or terminal-based electronic information service, typically accessed through a telephone connection.
- Data or information presented through such a service, especially when discussing early British computing and telecommunications.
"The library offered visitors access to viewdata for travel and reference information."
"For a demonstration, the technician used viewdata to retrieve a directory of local businesses."
"The service made it possible to consult timetables, weather reports, and reference information from home."
When referring to the service or technology, viewdata functions as an uncountable mass noun.
"Viewdata was available in many offices, libraries, and public terminals."
Long before the web, viewdata turned an ordinary television into a window onto a digital database.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of viewdata
Viewdata is an English compound formed from the established words view and data. The term arose in Britain to name interactive videotext systems that allowed users to request and display stored information electronically. View ultimately derives through Old French from Latin videre, meaning “to see,” while data comes from Latin datum, meaning “that which is given”; visual, video, and viewer belong to the first lineage, while database and datum belong to the second.
How viewdata is actually used
The term is chiefly British and is now mostly historical or retrospective. It is generally used in a technical context and has a nostalgic association with the early public availability of interactive digital information.
Easily confused with viewdata
Videotex is the broader category of interactive text and graphics delivered through telecommunications, while viewdata is the chiefly British name used for such services during the early 1980s.
Teletext pages are normally broadcast one way and selected with a remote control, whereas viewdata is an interactive service that retrieves requested information through a connection.