Finally some pictures surfaced of the Bell Atlantic electronic directory CD-i, covering all phone numbers of people and companies in the region of Washington DC, as a first experiment. In 1993, NewScientist informed us as following: "Three hundred homes in Washington DC are being lent CD-i players by the telephone company Bell Atlantic as part of an experiment to save money and curb the waste of paper used for telephone directories. Subscribers use the player and disc to search electronically for numbers by name or by business, as in the Yellow Pages. Bell has commissioned Georgetown-based CapDisc, a producer of interactive video software, to produce a CD-i version of its paper listings for the Washington area. The first disc stores 1.2 million residential and 0.4 million business numbers, with 1000 colour video adverts. Bell is loaning the ‘Info-Active Electronic Directory’ CD and CD-i players to people in the Washington area to test consumer reaction. If the experiment is successful, Bell will make the discs available free to anyone with a Philips CD-i player, which costs about $500. The idea is an alternative to the Minitel scheme pioneered by France Telecom, which gave subscribers a simple computer terminal that could access a database of telephone numbers over the phone line.". These pictures are shared by CD-i member Blazers, also on The World of CD-i.
[Thanks to CD-i member Blazers and NewScientist]