DE,A tribute to CEEFAX
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OL,1,M]DA note about this page...      0/16  
OL,4,CWhen CEEFAX closed down on 23rd October
OL,5,C2012, I put together a special tribute 
OL,6,Cfor my YouTube channel.                
OL,8, This was a blog of my own memories of  
OL,9, the service, presented as a series of  
OL,10, teletext pages with music, in the style
OL,11, of the "Pages from Ceefax" in-vision.  
OL,13, The pages were originally created in a 
OL,14, demo version of the Cebra editor, and a
OL,15, BBC Micro emulator was used to create  
OL,16, an authentic-looking teletext display. 
OL,18, I have converted the original "pages"  
OL,19, to the TTI format used by Teefax/VBitPi
OL,21, The original video can still be seen at
OL,22,         Fyoutu.be/vqwL4XtDLyg          
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OL,1,D]Q                                     
OL,2,D]QG You're watchingCPAGES FROM...      
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OL,6,T]S    "###      ####    "###    "###   
OL,7,T]             #t6#####%                
OL,8,T]  GA half-arsed tribute to the        
OL,9,D]    GBBC's teletext service.          
OL,10,T]                                      
OL,11,V]                                      
OL,12,V]                                      
OL,13,V]         0                            
OL,14,V]S        0       V]D1974 - 2012       
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OL,5,GIt's the end of an era tonight as the  
OL,6,Zfinal stage of digital switchover      
OL,7,Gtakes place in Northern Ireland.       
OL,9,CFor viewers, it means an end to fuzzy  
OL,10,Cpictures and frees up a big chunk of   
OL,11,Cradio spectrum for various purposes.   
OL,13,GThere is one incredibly sad downside to
OL,14,Gthis event, however, as it marks the   
OL,15,Gfinal end to a truly innovative BBC    
OL,16,Gservice, which millions of people have 
OL,17,Grelied on for news and information over
OL,18,Gthe past thirty-eight years:BCEEFAX.   
OL,20,CWhen the last analogue transmitters are
OL,21,Cturned off, teletext in the UK dies.   
OL,23,D]G2/16              More in a momentH> 
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OL,5,GCeefax was created in the early 1970s  
OL,6,Gby a group of engineers in the BBC's   
OL,7,Gresearch department.                   
OL,9,CAs with many great inventions, it came 
OL,10,Cabout by accident. The BBC was looking 
OL,11,Cinto methods to transmit subtitles for 
OL,12,Cthe hard of hearing.                   
OL,14,GThe R&D people realised that there were
OL,15,Glines at the very edges of the TV      
OL,16,Gpicture which were not shown on screen 
OL,17,Gand could therefore be used to encode  
OL,18,Gdigital data.                          
OL,20,CIt wasn't a huge amount (just 1K per   
OL,21,Cframe) but that was enough for a few   
OL,22,Clines of text and chunky graphics.     
OL,23,U]G3/16              More in a momentH> 
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OL,5,Q                                       
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OL,10,MCThe extra data was translated into    
OL,11,Cinto methods to transmit subtitles for 
OL,12,MCtext on screen by a decoder.          
OL,14,G                                       
OL,15,GIn 1974, when the BBC launched its     
OL,16,Gfirst experimental service, only 30    
OL,17,Gpages were available.                  
OL,18,G                                       
OL,19,BThe early adopters were electronics    
OL,20,Benthusiasts who built their own        
OL,21,Bdecoders to receive the broadcasts.    
OL,23,D]G4/16                          MoreH> 
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OL,5,GBy the mid-1980s, however, TVs with    
OL,6,Gbuilt-in teletext decoders started to  
OL,7,Gbecome commonplace, and the popularity 
OL,8, of the service rocketed.               
OL,10,CBy this time, Ceefax had 100s of pages 
OL,11,Cand, along with its ITV rival, ORACLE, 
OL,12,Cenjoyed millions of viewers a day.     
OL,14,GIn the days before the Web or 24-hour  
OL,15,Gnews channels, teletext was often the  
OL,16,Gfirst place to go to for breaking newsZ
OL,17, stories or to get football results.    
OL,18,G                                       
OL,19,CIt was more than just news and sport,  
OL,20,Cthough ` there were plenty of games and
OL,21,Cfeatures to keep you entertained.      
OL,22,C                                       
OL,23,D]G5/16              More in a momentH> 
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OL,5,T]                                      
OL,6,C```````````````````````````````` 6/16 `
OL,7,GWith only a few lines of text, Ceefax's
OL,8, newsgathering teams quickly learned the
OL,9, skill of brevity.                      
OL,11, The to-the-point nature of the service 
OL,12, won it many fans. John Cleese was a    
OL,13, regular user of the cricket pages and  
OL,14, once rang the BBC to complain that the 
OL,15, scores were out ofQ h,,,,,,,,|4        
OL,16, date.             Q jV]W$,lQ\=5        
OL,17,                   Q jVQ5   W 5  
OL,18, Bruce Rioch, the   QjVQ5   W05  
OL,19, assistant manager  QjV/////W,,,,,,,,%  
OL,20, of QPR, found out Q "######Twggg5  
OL,21, about his sacking from     T----////%  
OL,22, Ceefax in 1997.                        
OL,23,T]                              CMoreH> 
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OL,4,EWITH COMMENTS BY INSINCERE DAVE  Q}k}
OL,5,                                  Q*ws?%
OL,6,BThe BBC's commercial rivals were busy, 
OL,7,Btoo. The original ORACLE gave way to   
OL,8,BTeletext Ltd, to the dismay of many who
OL,9,Bfelt Oracle's service was superior.    
OL,11,F"Barney's Bunch > Turner the Worm!"    
OL,13,BBut Teletext won most people over. In  
OL,14,Bparticular, its computer games section,
OL,15,BDigitiser, quickly came up with a      
OL,16,Bwinning formula of scathing news items 
OL,17,Bcombined with surreal characters.      
OL,19,F"I hope humourless management never    
OL,20,Fspoil it!"                             
OL,21,G```````````````````````````````` 7/16 `
OL,22,B]MD    BAMBER: "I LIKE PINK"    MOREH> 
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OL,1,BMailboxCOctober 23rd                   
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OL,5,   D]GRob  \In the 90s, a huge number of
OL,6,    satellite channels appeared, most of
OL,7,    which carried their own teletext    
OL,8,    pages. While many channels offered  
OL,9,    little more than a basic TV guide,  
OL,10,    there were exceptions, such as the  
OL,11,   GamazingBParamount Text.             
OL,13,    PText's letters page,BMailbox,Gwas  
OL,14,    something of a cult hit. It was a  G
OL,15,    bulletin board for discussions from 
OL,16,    the serious to the surreal, updated 
OL,17,    daily, with anything up to a hundred
OL,18,    messages, by its dedicated editor.  
OL,20,    I was an avid reader, although I was
OL,21,    too shy to even think about calling 
OL,22,    in.                                 
OL,23,R,,Q,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,B8/16Q,
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OL,1,T]W              `5h?!             
OL,2,T]CTeletextW    h' *o        F9/16  
OL,3,T]CgraphicsW    *%  |~4          
OL,4,T]Cwere an artW  |4 n5          
OL,5,T]Cform in theirW/%`o!          
OL,6,T]Cown right.W     rs?/%           
OL,7,T]W                .'a?!            
OL,8,T]CThey were veryW. (nwsx0            
OL,9,T]Clow-resolutionW !<.kt           
OL,10,T]Cand had just 7W  !0}          
OL,11,T]Ccolours availableW?!!c4         
OL,12,T]Cbut despite those W  j}         
OL,13,T]Climitations, someW   "0        
OL,14,T]Camazing art    Wp     t       
OL,15,T]Cwas produced.W bspp|||z/d      
OL,16,T]W               ?o|0     
OL,17,T]CKudos to theW   `!     
OL,18,T]Cteletext guysW p~uz}0  
OL,19,T]Cwho did soW  h  
OL,20,T]Cmuch with soW ! +o'{%  
OL,21,T]Clittle.W         p0x'#!   
OL,22,T]W             `z~?   
OL,23,T]W            `?'#//##(,"#/'#//'    
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OL,14,CCEEFAX was the bestW  j####kj5Qh,,,,l  
OL,15,Cplace to go to get W `rppppr25Qj    j  
OL,16,Ctravel news, too...W j#?//o#5!Qj//o  
OL,17,                    W "s####s! Qj~jjj~  
OL,18,B...as long as you didn't mind Q*/***/  
OL,19,Bwaiting for the Weekend Rail  Wh,,,,,4 
OL,20,BEngineering Info page to cycleWj     5 
OL,21,Bthrough 30 frames or more to  Wz|||||5 
OL,22,Bget to the screen of info you W//////% 
OL,23,Bneeded!                 GH>>>IW/j*% 
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OL,5,GThe lack of speed of the service has   
OL,6, often been cited as a major drawback.  
OL,7, Peter Kay extracted much comedy mileage
OL,8, from his attempts to book a holiday    
OL,9, through the 60-page carousels on       
OL,10, Teletext Holidays.                     
OL,12,CIn fact, many modern TVs can cache     
OL,13,Cpages in memory and call them up on    
OL,14,Cdemand: no wait, no need to pressBHOLD.
OL,16, This means that teletext can be an     
OL,17, order of magnitude faster than the     
OL,18, "better" digital TV replacements.      
OL,20,CHow long does the average BBC Red      
OL,21,CButton user spend staring at aEPlease  
OL,22,EWaitCmessage?                          
OL,23,Q]C                            MoreH>>> 
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OL,5,GTeletext's death has been a long and   
OL,6, drawn-out affair.                      
OL,8,CWhen ONdigital launched in 1998, the   
OL,9,Cbroadcasters decided that teletext did 
OL,10,Cnot fit in with this brave new digital 
OL,11,Cworld and declared the new service a   
OL,12,Cteletext-free zone.                    
OL,14, I wonder how many people, even today,  
OL,15, would prefer Ceefax, given the choice? 
OL,17,CMy dad used to routinely call up 302   
OL,18,Cto get the football results. However,  
OL,19,Che cannot get to grips with BBC Red    
OL,20,CButton's interface and so just does    
OL,21,Cwithout instead.                       
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OL,2,T]V=$jkj{jjkj{j{j!575w5 INFORMATION     
OL,3,T]V-,**(.****,*,* %%%,%                 
OL,4,T]S]D TELETEXT SWITCHED OFF TUESDAY  ]  
OL,5,T//-,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.///
OL,7, Teletext just doesn't seem as ` dare I 
OL,8, say it? ` "sexy" to modern broadcasters
OL,9, these days.                            
OL,11,FThe final death blow was probably the  
OL,12,Fadvent of laptops, smartphones and     
OL,13,Ftablet computers.                      
OL,15,GCeefax once promised "The world at your
OL,16, fingertips". A web-connected iPad can  
OL,17, actually deliver on that.              
OL,19,FWhere once you would dial up 101 for   
OL,20,Fthe news headlines, its now just as    
OL,21,Feasy to open the BBC News App.         
OL,23,T]                             S]DMore  
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OL,4,GSo, at around midnight on the 23rd     
OL,5, October, a switch will be flicked and  
OL,6, the "Newspaper With Thousands of       
OL,7, Editions Every Day" will cease to be.  
OL,9, I spent many a happy Sunday afternoon  
OL,10, when I was kid calling up page after   
OL,11, page, eventually getting to esoteric   
OL,12, stuff like the Bridge pages. Now all I 
OL,13, have are memories such as:             
OL,15,Q(GAt Speed on BBC1 and In Depth on BBC2
OL,16,Q(GPress REVEAL for answer.             
OL,17,Q(GThose weird test pages full of ~~~
OL,18,   symols                               
OL,19,Q(GPressAREDGto start Bamboozle on      
OL,20,   Channel 4.                           
OL,21,Q(GSpecially made Ceefax pages onBBob's 
OL,22,  BFull HouseGprize TV sets.            
OL,23,T]G                         NO MOREH:-( 
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OL,7,              CEEFAX GONE               
OL,9,              W  h|||4                  
OL,10,              W  j5                  
OL,11,              W  *///%                  
OL,14,               1974-2012                
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OL,11,              W                         
OL,17,       CMusic byGKevin MacLeod          
OL,23,                                   16/16
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