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Television Media

Ceefax Turns 30 375

Posted by michael from the over-the-hill dept.
VirtualUK writes "Ceefax, the text information service from the BBC turns 30 today (just 3 days after myself)!! For those not lucky enough to have seen what Ceefax is about, it is text information pages sent in out-of-band data space of TV transmissions in Great Britain. What started off as a subtitling project evolved into a service still used by over 20 million viewers a week even in the face of the Internet revolution. It just goes to show that for a lot of people, the best source of sport results, last minute holiday bargains and horoscopes is still just a click away on their TV remote."
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Ceefax Turns 30 More

Ceefax Turns 30

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  • Information non-overload (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Space cowboy ( 13680 ) * on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:38AM (#10328277) Journal

    One of the reasons Ceefax/Oracle was so popular was that it gave "just the facts, ma'am". It had to display on a 40x23 (ish) screen to work on the TV's of the time, and most pages used ZX81-style graphics (huge "pixels" :-) which reduced the content possibilities even more. Oh, it was free too :-)

    Curiously, this reduced content actually worked in its' favour - about all that could be put on a single page was the raw information, without political or other bias; there just wasn't the space for opinion. Even when they used linked pages (page displays, waits 30 secs, new page displays, repeat and loop) the real-estate was severely limited since each page had to stand alone.

    I clearly remember preferring the minimalist information from Ceefax over the long-form in a newspaper. If I wanted more about a story, I could listen to the news or buy a paper, but to get an overview it was ideal. A good example of 'less is more'. It helps that the Beeb has good journalists who can succinctly tell a story, of course...

    Simon (on-topic, for once :-)

    • The data presented by the Ceefax decoder in UK televisions appears to be closely related to the BBC Micro. In fact, if you directly compare an early BBC Micro display to teletext, you'd be pushed to spot a difference

      Most decoders fitted to UK TV's were actually simple TTL devices which just presented a 31 character set of glyphs to the screen.

      Indeed, in the early 80's, the BBC transmitted programs for the BBC Micro via teletext in a 'Telesoftware' service. This finally ended around 1989.
      • Indeed, when the BBC started the BBC literacy project in 1980, it was a requirement of the hardware that it would have a 'teletext' mode. This then became the BBC Micro's 'Mode 7' graphics.
      • That's because one of the BBC's design requirements for the BBC Micro was that it would be able to display Ceefax. Hence Mode 7 on the BBC Micro, which is a teletext display mode (there's a separate section the manual saying how to do graphics etc. in this mode, as it's a bit different from the way other modes work). AFAIK I think the BBC Micro has a separate chip just for that mode, which is why (AFAIK) it isn't available on the low cost Acorn Electron.

      • The BBC had a number of display modes with different numbers of colours and resolutions.

        One of these was Mode 7, which displayed just like Teletext. You could even get a Teletext adapter for your Beeb, plug in a TV cable and view Teletext on your monitor.

    • Re:Information non-overload (Score:5, Informative)

      by alanxyzzy ( 666696 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:58AM (#10328471)
      and most pages used ZX81-style graphics (huge "pixels" :-)
      Telextext was exactly the same as the Acorn BBC microcomputer display mode 7.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Micro [wikipedia.org]
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext [wikipedia.org]

      • The BBC's mode 7 was put in there in the first place with teletext in mind.
        Teletext predates the BBC by some 8 years, the Beeb having launched in April '82.
        Your links probably say this but oooh I looove karma. ;-)

        Now I shall get redundantly modded to Hell.

    • Re:Information non-overload (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mikael ( 484 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @09:12AM (#10328621)
      and most pages used ZX81-style graphics (huge "pixels" :-) which reduced the content possibilities even more. Oh, it was free too :-)

      It always amazed me to see how much they could do with those glyph blocks [freeserve.co.uk]. Maps of the UK, Europe, the world for weather, traffic and airport news, even Snoopy. Undoubtably,ASCII art at it's finest. And they could manage to compress entire news stories into 400 characters or less, while still maintaining the reading level.

  • teletext (Score:2, Interesting)

    by afd8856 ( 700296 )
    I think it's called teletext in some countries. Didn't RTFA though :)

    • Re:teletext (Score:5, Informative)

      by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:45AM (#10328336) Journal
      It's called teletext here in the UK too. Ceefax is just the BBC's name for its teletext services.

      All four terrestrial analogue broadcasters have teletext services and the hundreds of terrestrial/cable/satellite broadcasters have similar digital services too.

      One interesting factoid about teletext is that, at one stage, over half the holidays in Britain were bought via teletext (ads on teletext, response by phone). Obviously, with the development of the Internet that's changed, but the teletext holiday market is still pretty big.
      • All four terrestrial analogue broadcasters have teletext services and the hundreds of terrestrial/cable/satellite broadcasters have similar digital services too.

        Don't like to be picky but there are actually Five terrestial analogue broadcasters (although I personally can't get channel 5).

        • Re:teletext (Score:4, Informative)

          by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:54AM (#10328423) Journal
          Don't like to be picky but there are actually Five terrestial analogue broadcasters (although I personally can't get channel 5).

          Don't like to be picky either (well, sometimes I do), but BBC1 and BBC2 are both BBC channels. That's one terrestrial broadcaster providing two channels. So the four terrestrial analogue broadcasters are the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and five.
      • Don't you know that a 'factoid' is an INCORRECT fact?
        Darn CNN: Here comes the science [wsu.edu].
      • Also Sky has a Teletext service as well. most digital services, work so, so.
      • Confusingly, Teletext (with a capital 'T') [teletext.co.uk] is a commercial teletext service which runs on the non-BBC channels - this is the one with all the adverts.

        Teletext (with the 'T') was only really notable for Digitiser [freeserve.co.uk], anyway. :-)

    • Re:teletext (Score:4, Informative)

      by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <namtabmiaka>> on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:45AM (#10328337) Homepage Journal
      It's actually called teletext just about everywhere. CeeFax is simply an example of a teletext service. According to Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], CeeFax (a.k.a. Teledata) was first, and was followed closely by ORACLE. Other services came later.

      Personally, I find this story very interesting. I had heard about teletext from one of those old Usborne books as a kid, but I'd never actually SEEN it. I'd always assumed that it was one of those little known services that really didn't go anywhere. It seems I was wrong. :-)

      • Re:teletext (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dago ( 25724 )
        And for those who never saw it, SWISS TXT (the company behind teletext services of the 6 swiss public channels) put a nice online version [swisstxt.ch].

        What you have on your TV monitor is the square in the middle : no graphic, just text (with colors).
        In real life, you naviguate using the pages numbers (and buttons 0-9) or with the colored buttons (on newer TV set).

    • Re:teletext (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fred Or Alive ( 738779 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:51AM (#10328397)
      It's called teletext in the UK as well. It's just the BBC service that's called Ceefax (although the BBC teletext project was called Ceefax, and the ITV one was called Oracle, which both led to the names of the services). Oracle lost it's franchise in 1993, so Ceefax is the oldest teletext service in the UK, and probably the world. Oracle

      To confuse things the company who have the rights to broadcast teletext on ITV, Channel 4 and Five (the rights were sold separately from the rights for general TV broadcasting on the frequencies) are now held by a company called Teletext Ltd, or just Teletext for short.
    • It's called texttv in Denmark, and has a fairly long (don't know details) and successfull history. My parents, scared of the Net, still use it every day. I'd use it for occasional things when I still had a TV. It's simple. It's there. It's information.

      -Lars

  • Pretty cool stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <namtabmiaka>> on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:39AM (#10328283) Homepage Journal
    That's pretty cool! Here in the U.S., we had to pay per minute for contemporary services on Compuserve. With prices as high as $0.20 per minute, it's no wonder that Compuserve was primarily reserved for businesses! But to have hundreds of pages of text information pushed to your television set at no (excluding television tax) cost? That's amazing!

    Of course, the proliferation of U.S. BBSes started in the mid to late 80's and gained momentum right up until the Internet became popular in the mid-90's. Which makes me wonder. Is there a telnet machine somewhere where we can access the CeeFax info? It would be interesting to see what they're pushing over the airwaves.

    Ah memories. Sometimes I wonder if the tech of the 80's wasn't cooler than the tech we have today. Sure, we have Gooey interfaces and full color graphics, but what's that compared to the thrill of interfacing systems over a modem, cursing at natural language interfaces, designing BBS screens in TheDraw, and wowing at the amount of info that's (unknown to the general populace) being pushed over massive research networks and dial-up nodes? (3 days for an email? That's speedy, man!) Or maybe I'm just nostalgic. :-)

    • Re:Pretty cool stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig.hogger@gmail ... m minus caffeine> on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:56AM (#10328450) Journal
      That's pretty cool! Here in the U.S., we had to pay per minute for contemporary services on Compuserve. With prices as high as $0.20 per minute, it's no wonder that Compu$erve was primarily reserved for businesses! But to have hundreds of pages of text information pushed to your television set at no (excluding television tax) cost? That's amazing!

      You see, public entreprises (that belong to the State) aren't always bad... Public service is exactly what it says: service for the public, and not a sinister plot by the Government to enslave the population, as you yankees seem to be happy to believe so easily...

      And where is Compu$erve, nowadays????
      • And where is Compu$erve, nowadays????

        They were bought out by AOL, upgraded to be fully Gooey compliant, then integrated into the AOL user-base. Now they exist only as a website [compuserve.com] with some news info. It's painful to look at, really.

        The same fate befell Prodigy, GoNetworks, and anyone else who DARED compete with AOL. :-(
        • The same fate befell Prodigy, GoNetworks, and anyone else who DARED compete with AOL. :-(

          Actually:

          Prodigy first bought by SBC, and then rolled into the "SBC Yahoo" service when Yahoo's MCI partnership soured.

          Go was bought by Disney, and is a portal for all their owned companies (ABC, ESPN, et al.)

          Besides that, Mindspring and Earthlink are one company. Not EVERYONE was bought by AOL.

    • Over here we pay £121 per year for a dozen or so advert-free TV channels, and five (again advert-free) radio stations. This also pays for the BBC websites, streamed versions of the radio programmes for international viewers and listeners, and of course maintenance of the infrastructure (although that cost is split with the independent TV companies, who share equipment costs). These stations are available on analogue or digital terrestrial signals, or digital satellite.

      What do you guys pay for basi

    • No UK broadcasters have online feeds, but the Teletext Now and Then [mb21.co.uk] site does have a couple of snapshots of Ceefax, one from the early 1980's, and a couple of current ones. The Irish broadcaster RTÉ has it's service, Aertel [www.rte.ie] availible online however.

  • Information (Score:3, Funny)

    by Megaweapon ( 25185 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:42AM (#10328306) Homepage
    not only wants to be free but aparently broadcasted in as many forms as possible

  • Yes, and cable companies -still- don't show it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mccalli ( 323026 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:43AM (#10328317) Homepage
    Slashdot title length made me tell a slight falshood there - a number of franchise areas can receive this. But a large majority can't get hold of it, both Telewest and NTL areas (major UK cable suppliers).

    And yes, I'm in an NTL area that can't get it. And yes, I'm terribly annoyed - I used to use the subtitling quite often, even though I'm not deaf. Just wanted the volume off to listen to music, for instance, or needed to be quiet for some other reason.

    NTL [ntl.com], please sort out the broadcasting of teletext as you claimed you weere going to do more than three years ago.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  • Ceefax is cool but dated.... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tdvaughan ( 582870 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:45AM (#10328342) Homepage
    ...and its days are numbered. The UK government's deadling for ceasing analogue transmissions is 2012, at which point we'll all have to use the richer digital content. The reason it's been so successful for so long is similar to fax's longevity: it just works, and everyone is familiar with it.
    • The problem with "richer digital content" is that it takes frigging ages to load.

      If you want to look at the news headlines in Ceefax it'll take you a few seconds on a FastText TV. You'd be lucky for Sky News / BBC Interactive to even loaded after 30 seconds and then prepare to waste more time coping with the ever changing navigational controls scrolling through the headlines.

      At least the BBC try their best to keep their digital interactive service fast and useful. The Sky version is so laden with shite

    • Will have to use? Most Swedish channels that transmit teletext in the analogue network do it in the digital version too. The only difference is that it's a lot quicker in the digital version. It's the same chunky graphics, interface etc though. One example of this is SVT (I think it could be called the Swedish equivalent of BBC, http://www.svt.se).
  • ....Mostly because here in the USA we have flat-rate unlimited local calling for telephone service, which resulted in people going online through modems using telephone lines. That's why online services proliferated, and the rise of the public Internet happened in the USA due to this factor and the arrival of V.34 (28.8 to 33.6Kbps download speeds) and V.90 (56 Kbps download speed) modems in the 1990's.

    • Re:Teletext never really popular in the USA.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ozric99 ( 162412 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:54AM (#10328419) Journal
      All of that is true, however it's largely unrelated - the rise of the public internet happened largely in the last decade, not 30 years ago.
    • You know, we had BBSs here in Europe as well (although no flat rates)... but more to the point, they are different beasts altogether. Teletext isn't interactive in any way, it's just a handy way of retrieving small amounts of data with your remote. And for that purpose it actually works better than a terminal (accessible from your couch), and doesn't cost anything to the consumer.
    • I'm not really sure if the phone rates had anything to do with BBS proliferation. CeeFax was popular in the days when computers cost $3000 + $500 for a modem, and BBSes where long distance calls for 95% of the population.

      I'm guessing that the real reason has to do with the US's decentralized broadcast networks. When all the networks are owned and operated by the government, it's pretty easy to ensure that they conform. But in the US, we had tons of stations out in the country that survived on a shoestring
    • Tell me do you always link completely separate things in bizarre twists of the Logic? or are you just stupid?

      Ceefax 1974, BBS mid to late 80's, Internet 90's. One did not affect the adoption of the other. Internet actually replaced BBS, and until the mid 90's 98% of the population wouldn't be able to tell you what the Internet was never mind what the hell BBS was.

  • DecimalHexi (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Boss, Pointy Haired ( 537010 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:49AM (#10328373)
    One "cool" thing about the teletext system was the little known fact that the page numbers are actually in HEX.

    The "public" pages only use hex numbers that consist only of numeric characters, but I once had a TV that allowed you to enter the hex numbers aswell, and you could find all sorts of cool stuff, including some kind of system to automatically set video-recorders etc.
    • Some other stuff:

      The transmitted pages are 000-7ff but the user visible pages are 100-899
      The start page is 100 and not 000, pages 000-0ff are mapped to 800-8ff.

      Appearantly the general public will get confused when they have to punch in numbers starting with zero.

      Jeroen

  • Alevt (Score:5, Informative)

    by alanxyzzy ( 666696 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:52AM (#10328404)
    Alevt [goron.de] is the open source teletext player.

    It runs all the time on one of my desktops - IMHO it is the very best source of concise, up-to-date information.

    Here are some dumps of the current BBC front pages, courtesy of alevtd and w3m (some stuff snipped to avoid slashdot "junk" lameness filter).

    101.00 CEEFAX 2 101 Thu 23 Sep 14:46/55
    HOSTAGE'S RELEASE 'SABOTAGED BY US' 104
    Straw rules out Bigley negotiations 105

    BARRACKS Fresh abuses claims probed 113

    LIB DEM We're on the move Kennedy 115

    AIR BA taking on 200 Heathrow staff 110

    FBI Deported Cat Stevens back in UK 108

    SOCCER Keane denies assault charges 122

    HAITI Toll from flooding tops 1,000 114

    TRIBUTES Ceefax celebrates 30 years 111

    CATCH UP WITH YORKS & LINCS NEWS 160

    News index Top story TV/Radio Main menu

    << < o > >>
    100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 about
    Jump to page [ ] [ok]

    <hr>
    104.00 CEEFAX 2 104 Thu 23 Sep 14:48/20
    UK hostage's release 'sabotaged'
    The brother of British hostage Kenneth
    Bigley says the US has "sabotaged" his
    brother's release by refusing to free a
    detained woman scientist in Iraq.

    Paul Bigley told the BBC there had been
    "a shadow of light" when Iraqi
    ministers said the woman would go free.

    But the US ruled out freeing the woman
    one of two held in Iraq - saying it
    would not give in to the kidnappers.

    Kenneth Bigley was seen in a video
    appealing to UK Prime Minister Tony
    Blair to help save his life.

    Home news digest 141 World digest 142
    News Index 102 Flash 150 Regional 160
    Next News News Indx Headlines Main Menu

    << < o > >>
    100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 about
    Jump to page [ ] [ok]

  • TeleTekst here in the Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)

    by CvD ( 94050 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:52AM (#10328408) Homepage Journal
    Its called Teletekst here in the Netherlands and is still used quite a lot. The public broadcasting corporation even has a web gateway. Check it out here for those of you unfamiliar with the concept of teletekst:

    http://teletekst.nos.nl/ [teletekst.nos.nl]

    So you basically see all the area in black on your TV screen... use your remote to search for the pages.

    I guess they have this service on the web because a lot of people, like another poster said, like the sparse/terse way of information presentation. I frequently visit the weather (page 702) and news page (page 101) for a quick overview. Very useful.

    Also used for TV program listings and stuff like that (page 201 usually).

  • Digitiser (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SKicker ( 27704 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:53AM (#10328409)
    anyone remember the computer game page on channel 4 teletext called digitiser? That was some weird stuff..

    http://www.lynn3686.freeserve.co.uk/digitiser.html [freeserve.co.uk]
    http://www.mrbiffo.com/biffodigitiser.htm [mrbiffo.com]

    'The Man' and his column and all that 'press reveal' only to uncover a weird swan or something with flashing red eyes.

    I always wondered who was paying the wages of those crazy guys
    • Digitiser was certainly one of the best things on Teletext. I think it ran for around 10 years before they decided to call it a day.

      Possibly what made Digitiser so popular was not so much the fact that they reviewed games, but the very surreal humour.

      The Man with the long chin and Mr T and his bins were certainly some of my favourite characters on the pages.
      • I used to love digitiser. It never strayed away from providing absolutely top notch, quality content without any ego. The cult following and subtle but huge community spirit made it something quite amazing.

        It's sad to hear now, tha tit got wrapped up last year.

        Oh yeah, and digital services suck. They're slow, lacking in information, hard to read (how much can you anti-alias the text so its unreadable competitions must go on at press-red-button meetings) and have far too much eyecandy. id love a faster, cl

  • Being only 20 myself, I've grown up with Ceefax. (for those of you moaning "it's called teletext isnt it?"-- BBC were the first to come up with it and called it Ceefax, other people who then followed the idea called it teletext)

    It's therefore always been at hand and is still very useful till this day. I hadn't really ever thought of TV's without it.

    I wonder if the younger generations will one day take the internet for granted and not realise what a great technological advance it really was!

  • Pictures of CEEFAX pages (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ultrasound ( 472511 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @08:54AM (#10328424)
    For anyone interested there are so great photos of early Ceefax and Oracle pages as well some personal histories here [mb21.co.uk] and here [freeserve.co.uk]

    I still use Ceefax a lot, especially as a news source and for sports scores.

  • ...it is text information pages sent in out-of-band data space of TV transmissions...

    No, it is not 'out of band'. The data is sent using parts of the signal that are not part of the picture. If you know what the vertical blanking interval is, you know what I mean. If you don't, go learn something.

    The submitter is no engineer. Par for the /. course, I guess.

    • "not part of the picture" sounds like out of band to me. Or what would you consider out of band, something on a different channel altogether? Stop nit picking.
    • Out of band refers to any communication that happens outside normal channels.

      In this case, for the submitter (and for everyone else watching BBC TV) the normal channel would be the television program(me), ala BBC News, or information embedded in the actual image (ala CNN Headline News, etc.).

      So, while the submitter may not be an engineer, he certainly isn't incorrect, and the word usage is the same, and still applies, none the less.
  • As a football (soccer) fan ceefax is the fastest way to keep up to date. I don't know any football fan who hasn't at some time "watched" a match on ceefax.

    The 30 years of ceefax pages (p190 from memory) have quotes from several players and top managers (as well as David Moyes) saying pretty much the same.

    Interviews with players in the past have quotes where ceefax is often the first time they here about something happening at the club they play for.

    By comparison the digital services like "Sky Text" etc a

  • Ceefax is great (Score:2, Informative)

    by PorscheDriver ( 698772 )
    I currently have a digital STB here in the UK. If I want to look at the sports or news, I hit the 'Interactive' button, and then have to wait about a minute, whilst my Pace box downloads lots of adverts, and graphics, and all sorts of rubbish. Plus you have to navigate through lots of menus. (I would say about 6 steps, just to get to the football scores - each page taking anywhere between 10 seconds, and 60 seconds to download).

    In other words - It sucks! There's no 'direct access' to information.

    Ceefax is

  • Cee Fax.
    Cee Fax run.
    Run Fax run.

    Come on someone had to say it.

  • VRT, the Flemish broadcasting corporation also has a teletext service, and has had for as long as I can remember. What's cool about it is that they also have a web interface [193.121.55.225] to view it via their website. In the graphical view ('Grafisch'), the pages look very much like they do on TV (but on TV they are full screen of course).

    The three-digit numbers are links to other pages; in the web interface you can click on them, but on a TV-set you enter them using the remote control. The four colored links at the bot

  • And long may it continue (Score:3, Informative)

    by Zerbey ( 15536 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @09:03AM (#10328525) Homepage Journal
    Ahhh... good old MODE 7, aka Teletext. :-)

    One of the things I really miss about TV since moving to the USA is the various Teletext services. I've never understood why this system didn't catch on outside of Europe (maybe there's a technical reason, I dunno).

    Long before I had internet, I could spend literally hours reading Teletext pages and playing the really basic, but still entertaining games (remember Bamboozle?). We even had a Teletext reader on the old BBC Micros at my school, about 10 years before they got the JANET linkup :)

    The closest the US has is the information pages that DirecTV and some cable providers have. However, they're nowhere near as comprehensive.

  • Great for TV listings (Score:3, Informative)

    by brucmack ( 572780 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @09:04AM (#10328533)
    It's great for TV listings too... Long before anyone had satellite or digital cable, one could quickly load up a list of programming for the week, with info pages for all the major shows.
  • You don't wanna look ont tinternet for an oliday, you wanna look at ceefax.

    Two weeks in Benidorm, forty quid.

    Booked it, packed it, f**ked off.

    -- Peter Kay

  • Back in 1974 us Brits could buy a TV with
    effectively what was a built in wireless colour video terminal (something every geek should appreciate). Yet only in the last few years have big noises been made about wireless terminals in other arenas such as POS. Just goes to show that sometimes theres no such thing as a new idea!

  • Teletext to HTTP gateways? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @09:08AM (#10328573) Homepage Journal
    Are there any Teletext to HTTP gateways? It would seem a natural way to widen the exposure of the information.

  • Skinternet (Score:3, Informative)

    by ChiefGeneralManager ( 600991 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @09:09AM (#10328587)

    I've spent many a happy hour browsing Ceefax, and this website [mb21.co.uk] about how it all fits together. As a youth it takes a lot of effort to work out how Ceefax sends the page you ask for, but there's no two-way communication -- Page Frame Relay comes to the rescue.

    Bit of trivia -- Ceefax is ocasionally known as in the UK as the Skinternet because of the relative cheapness of getting on to Ceefax as opposed to the internet.
    [ Skint + Internet ]

  • for example, when my gf came from Brazil, she was amazed by this technology. We mainly used it for the tv-guide, subtitles and the weather forecast. I always assumed that everyone had teletext, but us Europeans are lucky it seems :)
  • The last time I was in Warsaw there was something like an info button on the remote. I pressed it and I could 'change channels' to different pages of text. One page was a character graphics map of Poland with the weather forecast! I kid you not, there were characters on the map indicating clouds and rain too. It was like a flashback to the good old days of ANSI animation on the local BBS.

    Was this service the same a Ceefax?
  • Back in around '85, we had Continental cablevision. There was an "AP News Plus" service, which had cheesy computer screens of news, that rotated every 30 minutes.

    I remember every few months the graphics would be completely messed up without anybody noticing, for a few days. Was funny to watch all the vector graphics mess up.

    I remember in Minneapolis there was a "children's stories" cable channel. All it consisted of were computer screens with cheesy(think MS Word clipart) graphics to children's stories. N
  • Go to CNN International [cnn.com]'s homepage, scroll to the bottom and click CNNtext for a good look at what Teletext is like.
  • After moving to the US, Ceefax, as well as better access to more exciting sports, plus better beer...What I don't miss, the East End accents, high tax rate and the weather :).

  • Good human interface design (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cloud K ( 125581 ) on Thursday September 23, 2004 @05:53PM (#10335240)
    I think a large part of what makes Ceefax/Teletext so successful and why I still love it even with digital interactive stuff, internet etc is that it's just so nice to use.

    It's consistent - okay, sometimes consistently blocky with consistantly slow waits for the carousel, but it's just darn consistent dammit! Same "fonts", same styles, Page 100 is always the start, it always has the same features (hold/reveal/mix etc) from one TV to the next etc.

    The information you're most likely to want is shown immediately on page 100.

    For novice users there are helpful indexes and usually coloured hotkeys that take you to well chosen related pages.

    For more advanced users you can enter a page number directly and get to the information you want quicker.

    It's highly accessible - huge, clear text on a plain black background that practically anyone can read even if they're hard of sight etc.

    With such a low resolution you only get the information you want and can easily assimilate at one time instead of a huge screenful of ads and other garbage to wade through.

    It's fairly quick (as long as you aren't after page 101 when the carousel has just gone past 102)

    It's remarkably easy to use. My granny uses it.

    Now, is it me or did the BBC do their theory research wonderfully (as they always seem to do, who says the license is a waste of money when so many slashdot articles originate from them) and have followed HCI principles really rather nicely. This is what happens when you develop a system properly - 30 years later, people are still using it and still love it!

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