John Adams - Inventor, Creator of teletext

 

John conceived the idea and made the original design of Teletext in the early 1970’s whilst working at Philips / Mullard Central Application Laboratories (CAL) in London.

 

He left Manchester university in 1970 with a passionate desire to work in the field of electronic brains, (now called AI), digital computing and information systems. Though less than a year out of university, Philips promoted John in 1971 to Lead Designer for Computer Data Entry Terminals. This was a new field as computers at that time typically used mechanical machines (teletypes) for data entry.

His development of advanced computer text displays was ground-breaking work in itself. However, John’s interest in the potential for a home information system continued. An obstacle was the high expense of the large amount of electronics that would be required by each home TV to make it possible. Unfortunately, the necessary technology to reduce the cost did not yet exist. Remember that this was the early years of the Information Revolution. Computers were very rare. Those that existed were the size of large rooms and found in a few big companies and institutions. Intel had only recently invented the microprocessor and PCs and smart phones were things of the future. The chips that John required and which would fuel the Information Revolution were yet to be invented.

John has some very amusing anecdotes from his Teletext time at Mullard. Tales of sitting in a London pub in 1971 nursing a half pint of Guinness whilst hoping for inspiration to help him dream up a design that would both work on the old, mal-adjusted TV of his granny! and yet also be cheap enough for her to buy.

 

His first idea to add digital electronics to home TVs and create a UK wide information system was born in 1970 whilst working on experimental electronics for computer data entry. In fact, John’s design was prepared for an early implementation as reasonably priced modules to add to an existing TV and for a future low cost application when integrated in to chips. His designs became the base of the Mullard Teletext Decoder Modules, the Mullard Teletext chips and Teletext systems throughout the World.

 

Philips, as one of the World’s biggest TV tube manufacturers backed the Teletext idea as it had potential to increase screen sales. Mullard CAL Management had two additional requirements: It should be affordable to “the man in the street” and be able to work on very old black and white TV sets as well as on the latest colour ones. In 1971 John devised a design and plan that overcame all technical obstacles and achieved both these goals. He drew up a proposal for a complete Teletext system. Included were a receiver for installation on home TVs and other essentials for a nationwide information system. For example: How the TV broadcaster could transmit the information to users homes. How multiple information pages could be made available and selected and many other technical details. The proposal was sent to the BBC and to the UK Independent Broadcasters.

 

It lead to the launch of BBC Ceefax in 1974. The text display and fundamental design that John had devised became the basis of the World standard for Teletext. In the following years it was implemented in many countries under a wide variety of names.

At Mullard, John went on to work on complex display systems and microprocessor designs. After that he worked as an independent digital design consultant at ITT Research Labs. In the late 1970’s he was headhunted by Intel where he worked for many years. He left Intel to start his own company in Spain where amongst other things he designed major testers for manufacturing lines producing electronics used by tier-1 automotive companies.

 

In 1990 we sailed our boat from Poole harbour to El Puerto de Santa Maria near Cadiz to start our new life in Spain and where we still live – but that is another story ! - Lorraine Bronny 2024