StarText was an online ASCII-based computer service officially launched May 3, 1982 by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Tandy Corporation. Its name was derived from Star (representing the newspaper which would provide the content) and Text (representing the computer company which would provide the technology).

...Initially, the service began charging $5.00 a month.... At first subscribers had to call StarText using 300 baud and entered four requests out of a choice of 50. StarText then delivered the information without further interactivity. To receive more information the subscriber had to repeat the same process. The first StarText system was provided by a Tandy Model II. -- Wikipedia, StarText

In the many years that have passed since StarText made its debut -- May 3, 1982 -- technology has moved on and so have the people who conceived, built and used StarText. But as one of those pioneers who opted to "go West" when the Internet wasn't even a twinkle in the eye of a modem, it's that "specialness" that deserves to be told.

It's a story I've been trying to tell for the last 10 years or more. Between the demands of career and family, and lack of interest among publishers, it has languished on my hard drive. But I feel it shouldn't languish any more.

So via this blog I am going to tell the story of how a small but dedicated group of people at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram joined together, defied all odds and managed to create one of the nation's first online success stories...

You can follow the installments in the archive headline links on the right side of the blog.

Here are some pieces of it:

The host computer would be a Tandy TRS-80 Model II. The system would come up with 3,000 frames of information, stored on four floppy drives.

You'll remember one of the mandates of the initial plan was the service had to be "easy to use." Looking back, one can only assume we were so caught in New Media pioneer euphoria that it didn't hit us: The success of our new venture depended on how well customers accepted and understood the "step-by-step instructions for using StarText." If the subscriber was using the Tandy TRS-80 videotex terminal, getting your news online was a simple, 19-step process.

and,

It was really pretty good at convincing customers on the benefits of waiting and waiting for their newspaper to download (each frame of text took 23 seconds to arrive at 300 baud):

"If you prefer, you can take advantage of the time to go perk your coffee, shower, pay the bills, etc., before coming back to read at your own pace. Once stored in your computer, you can flip back and forth through the news package as fast as your fingers can strike a key. It's faster than flipping through the pages of a print newspaper."

What comes through clearly is that the roadblocks mainly come from the technology -- software and interoperability -- which is still true today. The hardware issues have gone away.

Gerry Barker was once my boss, when he worked for Belo Interactive in Dallas; he's currently at the Palm Beach Post.