TICCIT is an acronym for Time-shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled Information Television, first developed by the MITRE Corporation

MITRE

The Mitre Corporation is a not-for-profit organization based in Bedford, Massachusetts and McLean, Virginia...

 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

NTSC

NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

 color signals, that subscribers could interact with on their television sets through a touch-tone telephone. In December, 1971, the National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...

 (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

University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...

 and also with the Instructional Research and Development Department of Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...

 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

Educational Testing Service

Educational Testing Service , founded in 1947, is the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization...

 (ETS).

TICCIT installations ran on a Data General

Data General

Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...

 Nova

Data General Nova

The Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and...

 minicomputer that could support over 100 simultaneous users. Participating community colleges were Northern Virginia Community College

Northern Virginia Community College

Northern Virginia Community College, often abbreviated NVCC and colloquially as NOVA, comprises several locations in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and is both the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States and the largest educational institution in the...

 in Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria, Virginia

Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...

, and Phoenix College

Phoenix College

Phoenix College is a community college located in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Founded in 1920, it is one of the oldest community colleges in the country....

 in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

. Following the end of the NSF-funded project, the Hazeltine Corporation

Hazeltine Corporation

Hazeltine Corporation was a defense electronics company which is now part of BAE Systems Inc.-History:The company was founded in 1924 by investors to exploit the Neutrodyne patent of Dr. Alan Hazeltine...

 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.

Courseware developed over the years for TICCIT included algebra, chemistry, Danish, English (grammar, mechanics, spelling, and composition), English as a second language (ESL

ESL

ESL is a common abbreviation for English as a Second Language, see English language learning and teaching.ESL may also refer to:-Companies:...

), French, German, humanities, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, physics, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Thai. Later projects at Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University

Brigham Young University is a private university located in Provo, Utah. It is owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints , and is the United States' largest religious university and third-largest private university.Approximately 98% of the university's 34,000 students...

adapted material authored for TICCIT to Apple II computers, DOS PCs, and eventually DVDs.