Ceefax and Teletext

[brisray]

All sorts of old technology in here, old telephone servies, 8-track cassettes...

There were TV services from the 70s and 80s I liked and they were Ceefax and Teletext. In a way a sort of precursor to the very early web. Text, very simple graphics, rudimentary animations and read only. The services lasted around 40 years, the BBC closed down Ceefax in 2012.

The services were, I think, the reason TV remotes still have the line of red, green, yellow and blue buttons on them.

[doubleincision]

i was actually just the other day trying to remember what this system was called! i remember reading about it ages ago and thinking it was cool. i'm a 90s kid from the US so i never got to experience it, because it never really took off here.

[brisray]

I read somewhere it was always more of a European thing, it just didn't catch on in the US.

I always was picky about what I watched on TV and even today even though it's on most of the time, I couldn't tell you what program is on, but I liked reading the teletext pages.

There were all sorts of things being tried on TVs at the time, such as broadcasting the software for the BBC Acorn microcomputers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rPcGul6g3E

[Guest]

My parents used teletext all the way until like 2010 to get weather and sports results, so I know what it looks and works like. ^^

[Cobra!]

We used teletext all the time when I was growing up! Sometimes my dad was interrupt what we were watching to check weather and sports news on teletext. I never complained, because I loved their attempts at making pictures!

I recall reading somewhere that VHS recorded teletext as well as the video, and that you could access the teletext as it was when that tape was recording, is this true?

[brisray]

What an interesting thought. Teletext was transmitted in the "spare" spaces in the program tranmission so it may have been recorded.

S-VHS recorders were rarer but had a higher bandwidth and people say they have successfully (sometimes) seen the recorded Teletext on those machines.

Is it possible to record Teletext?

The Teletext Museum is looking for old S-VHS tapes to decode to get the Teletext off of them.

[brisray]

UK Vintage Radio Repair has a thread about what could or couldn't record Teletext.

TVs at the time had a built-in Teletext decoder - maybe something to simply extract the images rather than anything fancy like encryption - so perhaps there were two things to worry about, recording the full bandwidth to start with and then separating the signals back out from the video tape.

[bearbearbear]

The Finnish Broadcasting Company still runs its teletext service. You can even view it over the internet! Content is in Finnish of course, but here's some pretty pictures I found:

• 805 - Museum of Teletext Art (click "Näytä alasivut" to view subpages)
• 863 - Cybersecurity llama
• 887 - An ad for upcoming programme (the wings are supposed to be blinking, but the web version cannot do that apparently)
• 892 - Calendar for current month
• 893 - Calendar for next month

They claim (page 898) that 780 000 people still use the service daily, but that seems too many to me.

[brisray]

Maybe the Finns just adore their Teletext. I liked the artwork, it's kinda cute - https://yle.fi/aihe/tekstitv?P=806 and https://yle.fi/tekstitv/reseptit/reseptit2009.html

[Plasmon]

Honestly, the best thing about Ceefax for us non-Brits was the acid crew.

[brisray]

but but but they're British. He comes from Chelmsford of all places. Chelmsford - famous for radio and now Ceephax 

[HayleyMulch]

Aaaaah Teletext! Like the internet but on your telly and provided by the TV networks. I always loved seeing pictures made in Teletext and any daily trivia and puzzles that would be available.

In Ireland, the channel RTÉ had Aertel, it's own version. And funny enough, the Aertel website with all the page numbers still exist here, but now they just direct you to the appropriate part of RTÉ's website.