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Ceefax Turns 30

Posted by michael on 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."

8 of 375 comments (clear)

  1. Information non-overload by Space+cowboy · · Score: 4, Interesting


    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 :-)

    --
    Physicists get Hadrons!
    1. Re:Information non-overload by mikael · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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. 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.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
  2. Pretty cool stuff by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  3. Yes, and cable companies -still- don't show it by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting
    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, please sort out the broadcasting of teletext as you claimed you weere going to do more than three years ago.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  4. Ceefax is cool but dated.... by tdvaughan · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...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.

  5. DecimalHexi by Boss,+Pointy+Haired · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Digitiser by SKicker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
    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

  7. Pictures of CEEFAX pages by ultrasound · · Score: 3, Interesting
    For anyone interested there are so great photos of early Ceefax and Oracle pages as well some personal histories here and here

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