The Return of Wright Chatter

Hello and Welcome. This is the return of Wright Chatter.

Wright Chatter, what is Wright Chatter? Well, if you have previously heard of Wright Chatter then congratulations, you are someone whom must be as old as the writer of this blog, for Wright Chatter originally appeared in 1989 on a service by the name of Micronet 800, which was a part of the Prestel viewdata service run and owned by BT. Micronet 800 closed in 1991 so Wright Chatter moved over to the Silicon Village, another viewdata service, and for a short period even appeared on the Gnome at Home, a viewdata service ran by enthusiasts in London. When I decided to subscribe to an Internet service Wright Chatter's final edition appeared in about 1993.

Viewdata had the same appearance as the teletext service that you can get on the 'about to close' UHF television service, but it was a teletext type service and a whole lot more, with users very much interacting with each other via email and other communication facilities, but the main feature for us home computer enthusiasts was the various computer related components that dealt solely with your computer type, bringing you up to the minute news and views of happenings of your chosen computer.

My BBC Model B Computer made by Acorn Computers, the first computer I used to access Micronet 800

There was even software that could be downloaded, albeit a little slow and long winded in download speed. The rather off-putting part of using the service was having to actually dial into the service and having to pay for the phone call, and on Micronet 800 a minute by minute on-line charge, which varied as to the time of day you used the service.

Because using the service tied up your phone line during use, obviously no other calls could be made or received when on-line. I can recall on several occasions family members being somewhat annoyed at this and their method of ending my on-line sessions by lifting the phone receiver several times, which led to disconnection of communication with my computer.

All this may seem rather primitive in these days of broadband and the multi-media availability of the world wide web, but these were pioneering days for home users which were both exciting and mostly a joy to use.

With this new incarnation of Wright Chatter I shall attempt to bring some interesting articles, not just about the world of computers and it's various interconnected subjects but also any other topic which I consider worthy of mention.

So why bring back Wright Chatter? I hear you ask! That's a good question, you can thank a young lady by the name of Chelsie for that. Chelsie and her friend Kate have a blog on the subject to Afternoon Tea. To use their words they are Afternoon Tea fanatics and travel the world to share their experiences with us. Chelsie asked me to help with redesigning parts of their blog and the best way for me to do that was to subscribe and try out what she wanted on my own blog. Having done that I couldn't just abandon my newly acquired blog, so decided on the rebirth of Wright Chatter.

In my tests I did put up a photograph of our dog Simba, emerging from a laundry basket. Chelsie did say the picture was cute, and I don't have the heart to delete it, so although it has nothing to do with the subject matter discussed, here is Simba:-

This is Simba emerging from the laundry basket

Any comments on this blog, that you may have, will be most welcome, either here or on Twitter @JeffersOnHere. I hope to be back soon, in the meantime do have a look at Kate and Chelsie's Afternoon Tea Blog, it is quite amazing!