ecommerce and shopping carts

[Rob O'Donnell]

At 12:31 14/10/2004, Andrew K. Bressen wrote:


>Anyone know of any other shopping-cart and/or automatic payment
>systems that were up and running or publically described
>before October of '94?


I definitely bought a book ("The meaning of Liff") in the early 1980s on 
Prestel, British Telecom's online viewdata public information service.  I 
think it was via Club 403 (all pages were numbered, with main IPs 
("Information Providers") being allocated 3-digit prefixes, hence many 
called themselves after their page number).  I actually found my old '403 
membership card the other day - it expired in 1985.  I have a vague feeling 
that although I placed the order through their online system, they phoned 
me up for the credit card details..

I do have a fair bit of old Prestel (and Viatel - Australia) publicity 
material and IP brochures, but not sure if they mention any form of 
e-commerce (as that phrase hadn't been coined then!).

Rob