@vga256 Ohh! Nice detective work! Wow! 🕵🏻‍♂️

I didn’t even think of looking at archive.org.

* The 1995 job (and 3rd 1997 job) seems to be for the Windows C++ applications used to author the content. Which according to the web archive, there was VCN Creator, VCN Media Editor and VCN Ressource (VCN = “Visual Communication Network”).

And then there’s the VCN Server and the VCN Express Communicator (used to send emergency messages).

Wow, so Métro stations had a “Media Controller” that wirelessly sent the data to the displays (I mean this is all still around considering the system is still used).

* The 1st and 2nd 1997 jobs seem to imply that the displays run on PC/104 embedded 486/Pentium architecture for the high-level and Motorola 68k and FPGA for the low-level?

They were all produced in house by Télécité based on web banners, print, photos and video files.

And the old logo! I remember this animation (with the swoosh swoosh swoosh haha).

This is super fascinating. I do need to dig further! #Telecite #Montreal #Metro

Long shot but—
Any leads on data archives of the content being shown on the Montréal Métro Télécité displays from 1991 to 2015?

It was such a unique medium [see links below] but now it's gone.
Would be so nice to dig up those files and run them on an emulator, a modern recreation or even better: on real hardware.

Those tri-colour (orange, red and green) LED matrix displays were pretty advanced for their time, featuring fluid animations. Even the ads were so unique as they had to be custom. But it was more than ads! There was news, weather, tidbits, fun facts, trivia and even poetry to pass the time. For close to 25 years, it was such an integral part of riding the Métro.

Installed in 1991 and acquired by Alstom in 1999, the system was then sold to other transit systems around the world. It was apparently one of the first of its kind.

The custom content was phased out as the newer (MPM-10) trains were put in service. Télécité displays are still in use on the old MR-73 trains, where they're kept at their minimum: showing the date and time, announcing stations and their connections as well as any service announcements.

In the 1990s, it introduced itself with this cool animation:
"Vous regardez: [logo swoosh swoosh swoosh] Télécité, les afficheurs électroniques du Métro"

In the 2000s, it became:
"Alstom Télécité, média électronique du Métro"

I only found a few newspaper articles mentioning it despite it being so ubiquitous for over two decades. There's only a handful of videos of it on the internet (mostly > 2009, when people started having video cameras in their pocket).

📹 Footage from 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPAaiT0lnBY

🔠 Artist William Gamache recreated the font in 2017 (but never released it, AFAIK):
https://www.behance.net/gallery/52783015/Prochaine-Station

📺 Gamache also made an animation that can only be found on the MR-73 English Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MR-73#Automated_announcements_and_visual_information

📷 Left: Picture by me, last Thursday on the Blue line; right: screenshot from footage above.

#STM #STCUM #Subway #Montreal #Metro #MontrealMetro #Alstom #Telecite #PublicTransit #MR73