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Ceefax Simulator

nathanmediaservices.co.uk

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Re: Ceefax Simulator

#71

Post by Aloha »

joezydeco wrote: post #65
sparky_ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it wasn't a thing in the US, but basically all televisions in Europe had a text mode for this, and it was very popular when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s.

US televisions didn't have support for the blanking interval data and GUI, and it never got added to the NTSC standards. For a brief period in the 1980s a few companies tried to provide teletext service, either over modem or a UHF decoder to a home computer or - more bizarrely - as a read-only presentation done overnight when no other scheduled programming was being shown. Keyfax in Chicago: https://www.youtube.com/w…

I think it did get added to the NTSC Standards - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NABTS

That said, there were several other competing standards offered at the same time including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electra_(teletext)

The issue of course - like everything else with standards adoption in the states, the decoder wasn't mandated to be included with TV sets.

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#72

Post by ionwake »

ta1243 wrote: post #46
ionwake wrote: post #43

Does the UK still have a live teletext or was it shut down ?

It was shut down with analog TV, the DTT version was MHEG based "red button", which the BBC itself is shutting down (has shut down) as 1) It was never as good as ceefax 2) It was never as good as the internet, even when it launched in 2010 No idea about ITV, I barely know about BBC given how rare it is to watch live TV.

Thanks for the reply m8

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#73

Post by wrboyce »

hi_hi wrote: post #30

Noooo, there's no page 370. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitiser This takes me right back to grabbing my morning cup of tea and sitting bleary eye'd while waking up and reading the latest computer news before school. Hmm, not much has changed to be honest!

Digitiser (and Bamboozle) were on Teletext, not Ceefax.

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#74

Post by seabass-labrax »

dahauns wrote: post #47
__michaelg wrote: post #14

Germany's public broadcaster still offers an official website to see their current teletext: https://www.ard-text.de/

Here's the Austrian: https://teletext.orf.at/ And it might be tempting to brush this off as just an anachronism to amuse ourselves with, but IMO this undervalues it quite a bit. For example, the Austrian teletext still has almost a million daily users (in a country of 9 million) - let that sink in. And there's a good reason: Conceptually, Teletext (at least when it's well maintained) is the antithesis to modern infor…

I wouldn't be so quick to crown teletext as the king of succinct media. Just on the first page of the ORF teletext channel you refer to, there are lines flashing between advertisements for online gambling, tattoos and vegan (?) products with which to protect one's bladder and prostate. In order to navigate between news stories you have to memorize series of three-digit numbers or scroll through long indexes. After that, yes, in fairness, you get a nice simple text-only news article. Shame if you actually want the pictures though.

I personally think that the Web is a worthy successor in every respect, mostly because you have so much choice in how the page is displayed. Typefaces, colours, whether or not to display pictures - it's all up to you, the reader.

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#75

Post by astrosi »

ta1243 wrote: post #48

For those living in London, one of the Mayoral Candidates is promising to bring back ceefax. Not sure how he'll do it, technically I believe DTT can carry teletext data, although I'm not sure if modern TVs will process it. Back in the day I believe ceefax used to be generated out of a couple of beige tower PCs in a BBC office somewhere.

The candidate in question is Count Binface - who is part of a long British political tradition of joke candidates.

Safe to say I think the implementation details of this policy probably aren't needed.

https://www.countbinface.com/2024-manifesto

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#76

Post by Retr0id »

ta1243 wrote: post #48

For those living in London, one of the Mayoral Candidates is promising to bring back ceefax. Not sure how he'll do it, technically I believe DTT can carry teletext data, although I'm not sure if modern TVs will process it. Back in the day I believe ceefax used to be generated out of a couple of beige tower PCs in a BBC office somewhere.

Modern TVs support "HbbTV", and it's enabled by default in many locales. It's essentially HTML-over-DVB (including javascript), which is absolutely terrifying when you realize that there's no encryption or authentication, and that it's something you can broadcast for yourself with a cheap SDR, and that TVs run outdated browser engines with root-equivalent privileges.

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#77

Post by [deleted] »

dilawar wrote: post #56
jonplackett wrote: post #44

I have a 6yo daughter and it’s always funny trying to explain old technology to her. Yesterday I was trying to just explain TV shows starting at specific times the of the day and even that seemed insane to her. Equally having to go to a shop to get a song was mind blowing. I haven’t had to explain ceefax yet so this will help.

My coworker 4y old son have never seen money exchanged at shops since UPI has become so prevalent in India. He would just pick things at shop and walk. He didn't relate scanning QR codes with exchange. I should ask my coworker if he tried explaining physical money to him and how he reacted to the idea.

[deleted]

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#78

Post by b800h »

This system already existed - it's open source - and while the page owner has linked the actual creator, the addition of a "donate" button is a bit suspect, in my opinion.

The hard work was done by other people - whether the modern news content was de novo I don't know - but it has been done elsewhere by other people, like the original, which has multiple channel and music - check it out here:

https://zxnet.co.uk/teletext/viewer/

Try Channel 6!

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#79

Post by jefurii »

If you like Ceefax you might also like Ceephax Acid Crew[1], discussed on HN previously [2], who uses a lot of vintage electronic music gear and puts actual(?) simulated(?) Ceefax screens in some of his videos. He's the brother of Squarepusher if that means anything to you.

- [1] http://www.ceephax.co.uk/ - [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30998462

Re: Ceefax Simulator

#80

Post by crtasm »

hi_hi wrote: post #30

Noooo, there's no page 370. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitiser This takes me right back to grabbing my morning cup of tea and sitting bleary eye'd while waking up and reading the latest computer news before school. Hmm, not much has changed to be honest!

This is a great read:

http://www.digitiser2000.com/main-page/games-of-my-years-dig...

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