Loewe Multicom 715L

This unit is dedicated terminal for Bildschirmtext information service, available in 1980s in West Germany. Bildschirmtext, abbreviated BTX, was information exchange service, in which, with modem, terminal and optionally floppy drive, data in pages could be transmitted by telephone network. User purchased or rented (from German Post) equipment and paid per page, each page could cost different. Also, pages could be saved on a floppy to read them later. In 2001 BTX was switched off because of Internet popularization.
The device was based on Loewe color TV, it has even SCART connector, unfirtunately I have problems with getting picture out of it (or feeding it with picture).

Manufacturer: Loewe

Model Multicom 715L
Year: 1988
CPU: Dedicated VLSI
Memory: 64K
Display: Color CRT
Keyboard: Dedicated
Main port: Serial
Additional ports: Serial port for floppy
Secondary serial port
Centronics printer port

 
   
(NOT terminal manual, but Bildschirmtext service manual!)

Peripherals in collection:
 - Keyboard
 

My unit came to Poland with electronics junk from German Post. It is in quite good condition, yet screen has quite poor contrast (flyback transformer just worn out).

Loewe can operate in 2 modes:
 - BTX mode, in which it starts - used for Bildschirmtext operation, in which it drives modem.
 - TERM mode, in which it becomes a serial terminal.

Links:
http://www.btxmuseum.de/Hardware/geraet.asp?id=33 - one of few photos of this unit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildschirmtext - Bildschirmtext in Wikipedia