Slashdot Mirror
BBC Turns Off CEEFAX Service After 38 Years
Kittenman writes "After 38 years (1974 - 2012) the BBC's CEEFAX service has ceased transmission. The service gave on-line up-to-date textual information (albeit in condensed form) to TV viewers in the pre-Internet era and afterwards. Its final broadcast signed off with, 'Goodbye, cruel world.' '... the real impetus for viewers came when BBC Television decided to use a selection of Ceefax pages, accompanied by music, before the start of programming each day. Initially called Ceefax AM and Ceefax In Vision, the Pages From Ceefax "programme" continued for 30 years, being broadcast overnight on BBC Two until this week. As viewers got a small taste of what Ceefax had to offer, millions of Britons during the 1980s invested in new teletext-enabled TV sets which gave them access to the full Ceefax service, which by now included recipe details for dishes prepared on BBC cookery shows, share prices, music reviews and an annual advent calendar.' An British ex-PM (John Major) said, 'From breaking global news to domestic sports news, Ceefax was speedy, accurate and indispensable. It can be proud of its record.'"
Yeah I hate it when they do that. Not only was it digital, it was interactive as well.
Fast-text (the coloured buttons) even gave you hyper links.
Hell, you could download software to your home computer over it!
There were digital publications (Digitizer!! 8D)
There were interactive games (Bamboozle!)
There was even at one point a chat room (You had to phone up and type in your message using, I think, SMS style text input)
Finally, I remember voice controlled teletext. You phoned up, set it up, browsed to one of the sub pages, spoke into the phone and the right page turned up on the screen.
All that by the early 90s.