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Ceefax Turns 30
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."
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"
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
Physicists get Hadrons!
I think it's called teletext in some countries. Didn't RTFA though :)
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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, please sort out the broadcasting of teletext as you claimed you weere going to do more than three years ago.
Cheers,
Ian
...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.
....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.
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.
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.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
anyone remember the computer game page on channel 4 teletext called digitiser? That was some weird stuff..
l
http://www.lynn3686.freeserve.co.uk/digitiser.htm
http://www.mrbiffo.com/biffodigitiser.htm
'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
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!
"Je suis sac du poubelle dans la jardin"-- RDC
I still use Ceefax a lot, especially as a news source and for sports scores.
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 are slow and clunky. They don't allow the flexibility to show/hide information quickly and in my opinion are a huge step backwards for usability.
Are there any Teletext to HTTP gateways? It would seem a natural way to widen the exposure of the information.
www.eFax.com are spammers
In france you could get a Minitel device, like teletext but much more interactive
Minitel.
The layout and style of Ceefax was largely based around the text capabilities of the old Acorn BBC Micro (the name is, as far as I know, a coincidence) that was originally used to design and layout the pages. It had 32K of memory, as I remember, and was a marvellous machine.
I'm a big cricket fan (this is relevant, honest, stick with it).I lived for a while in a basement flat so the radio didn't work. Rupert Murdoch's Sky had all the cricket for a bit and I refuse to give him money on the grounds that he is evil in a way that would Make even Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer blush. So I have occasionally been reduced to watching the test match on Ceefax. Not entirely satisfactory it has to be said.
Am I the only one who remembers Telidon? I'm old, I know.
I was talking to my grandmother sunday, they are getting a new TV and she mentioned that she made sure that it will have ceefax as she missed its absence on the tv that just died!
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!