Comments on: Press reveal for joke!

Press reveal for joke!

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:02:04 -0800

The Ceefax teletext service is essentially the same now as when the BBC developed it in 1973, and is still used across Europe. Absurd, outmoded and wonderfully British, old bean.

By: sebas

sebas — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:09:39 -0800

Teletext is great, it provides services like subtitles and many VCRs in europe use it for making sure the recording starts on time and ends on time when program times change. I love it, because it provides me news and program information faster than looking it up on the internet.

By: twine42

twine42 — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:12:57 -0800

Ceefax is indeed very European. Personally, I hate subtitles on Sky because they don't look right. How bad is that? ;)

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:27:15 -0800

Does anyone else notice that the screenshots look a lot like the old DOS ISP Prodigy? Did anyone else even have that online service?

By: TheCuriousOrange

TheCuriousOrange — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:28:00 -0800

I miss digitiser.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:28:43 -0800

We all do.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:31:27 -0800

Mr Biffo

By: SteveInMaine

SteveInMaine — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:39:04 -0800

Well now, believe it or not we had a version of Ceefax here in the states back in the early 1980s. So long ago that I barely remember it, but I was a beta tester for the Keyfax system, which piggybacked on the over the air signal of WFLD television in Chicago. Rupert Murdoch's purchase of the TV station (along with the Suntimes newspaper) in 1984 is credited for killing the teletext system. His contention: "I do not believe that tomorrow's newspaper will be delivered on a TV screen." If he only knew... Since decoder boxes weren't available at that time, they delivered a 25" Zenith color television with the teletext built in for me to "test" - SWEET! Back then I found the service of limited use, as it seemed to take forever for the text to download from the OTA signal. Of course this was also the era of 300 baud computer modems, so I didn't complain much.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:39:50 -0800

some light music

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 10:58:11 -0800

ALongDecember, we used to rock The Prodigy at 300 baud on a C64.

By: TheCuriousOrange

TheCuriousOrange — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:10:55 -0800

Wow, I lost track of Biffo after bubblegun stopped updating. Nice to know he's doing well and I hope his sitcom gets made.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:21:46 -0800

ALongDecember, Prodigy was my first ISP, in, oh, 1992 or 1993. Kids these days don't know how good they have it!

By: hoskala

hoskala — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:29:16 -0800

Many people I know still use teletext. And absurdly some of them check the news from the web-version of our national broadcasting company's teletext. They also have news pages, but people seem to "like" the teletext "interface" better???

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:44:04 -0800

Digitiser is to Teletext as Revolver is to pop music - the perfect embodiment of its medium. There was an attempt to bring it to the internet, as a standalone site, wasn't there? I remember having to pick my tv-set style and stuff. Or am I going mad?

By: loquax

loquax — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 11:49:39 -0800

I have no idea what you people are talking about, but I love it.

By: dmd

dmd — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:18:36 -0800

I remember prodigy... I was NSXV86A. (This of course was long before the internet was available "exclusively on prodigy" [sic, from their advertising].

By: cmonkey

cmonkey — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:34:19 -0800

I first discovered computer pr0n on either Prodigy or Compuserv. I'll even admit that I tried AOL back when they had a shitty DOS client and gopher access. Speaking of the Old Days, are there any public telnet sites with BBS door games around?

By: influx

influx — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:49:52 -0800

My current knackered telly doesn't have teletext - do they still have the quiz Bamboozle on fourtext? I have fond memories of that (as well as Digitiser, with Mr Biffo (now an Edge columnist). (BTW, I have never heard anyone say 'old bean' on this sceptered isle, for what it's worth.)

By: cameldrv

cameldrv — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 12:56:46 -0800

It looks like prodigy because they both use(d) NAPLPS

By: dogwelder

dogwelder — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:27:53 -0800

There was a really poorly implemented teletext system on the cable at my parents' house. The only reason I knew about it was that my folks had a TV that could decode teletext. I found the system while screwing around with the remote. It was really cool to be the only one to have it, until I realized that it had no useful or interesting content.

By: mrbill

mrbill — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:57:44 -0800

Prodigy still exists, at least as just a "branding". Friend of mine is a UNIX systems admin for P* (as he calls it) and SBC.

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 13:58:05 -0800

The Digitiser bloke now writes for Edge magazine; there are rumours of financial meltdown at Teletext; anyone remember the adapter for the BBC B+ that let you download programs from Ceefax? I never did get that to work.

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 18:01:19 -0800

Ahh, glad to see some Prodigy users here. I was like 6 when I used it, so I loved the Sesame Street area (with PC speaker music and all!) Oh, and I was ABYN40A.

By: krisjohn

krisjohn — Mon, 21 Jun 2004 22:50:24 -0800

Austext is still going as strong as it ever was in Australia on Channel 7. I use it frequenly for news when I can't be bothered turning on a PC, or checking Google News on my mobile phone.

By: etc

etc — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 02:59:22 -0800

It's worth pointing out that in the UK, Teletext (capital T) is the company that provides teletext (small t) services to channels 3, 4 and 5. Ceefax serves the BBC channels. there are rumours of financial meltdown at Teletext Much of Teletext's income comes from advertising, and much of that is travel advertising. The travel industry still hasn't recovered from 9/11 and Teletext's problems have occurred as a result. I was working there at the time and still remember the email that went round just after lunch that day about 'a plane crash in New York' - they have banners at the bottom of news stories which have to be removed if they clash with the story - eg flights at the bottom of plane crash stories, loans at the bottom of financial stories etc. Then in the following weeks hearing stories about clients attempting to claim refunds because many of the banners were pulled, or getting reductions because their business had been affected.

By: Blue Stone

Blue Stone — Tue, 22 Jun 2004 09:43:42 -0800

dng, from Monkeyfilter kindly emailed me in response to my post, above, regarding Digitiser on the web - there was one! I didn't just dream it: "It was called Digiworld (it only lasted 8 weeks, unfortunately). It was pretty good, but they ran out of money (and Digitiser's Mr Biffo ran off after the first week). Theres an archive here." dng's, pretty neat, Digitiser Cartoon Strip Generator. Thanks dng.