TICCIT

TICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation in 1968 as an interactive cable television (CATV) system.

From June, 1971 through July, 1972 MITRE demonstrated a number of potential social, commercial, governmental, and educational interactive services through the Reston, Virginia cable television system. The original system created computer generated frames, converted to NTSC color signals, that subscribers could interact with on their television sets through a touch-tone telephone. In December, 1971, the National Science Foundation (NSF) Technological Innovations Group granted a contract to MITRE to further develop the TICCIT system as a Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) system for community colleges. MITRE subcontracted with the CAI Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin and also with the Instructional Research and Development Department of Brigham Young University to refine the user interface and create the massive amounts of courseware needed to teach a complete college-level English and algebra course. A trial implementation of the English and algebra courseware took place through the 1975-77 school years, and was evaluated by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).

Participating community colleges were Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria, Virginia, and Phoenix College in Phoenix, Arizona. Following the end of the NSF-funded project, the Hazeltine Corporation acquired the rights to commercialize the TICCIT system, which they did for several years, selling systems to military, industrial, and educational customers. With the advent of the personal computer, Hazeltine released an updated version of TICCIT, known as MicroTICCIT.