Happy birthday Ceefax!

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Actually I think it was yesterday, 30 years old. Interesting article in the Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1309688,00.html.

So talk about Ceefax and Teletext here! They are gone to me forever, alas :(

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Shame about the moronic 'fan' quote in that article though: "I have fond memories of putting the subtitles on as a kid, turning the sound down and imagining what it would be like to be deaf."

Er, that is NOT what it's like to be deaf, dear. (Now watching TOTP with the subtitles on, *that* was a treat.)

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:08 (twenty-one years ago)

How come it's just as crap as it was 30 years ago? Whatever happened to progress?

― Dadrockismus (Dada), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:08 (twenty-one years ago)

watching eurovision with teletext on is the best

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Man, I miss Teletext. My current TV doesn't seem to do it. :-(

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:14 (twenty-one years ago)

We didn't get a Teletext TV until the early 90s. Nan liked watching Songs of Praise with the subtitles.

I was gonna say it was a shame that 'Pages from Ceefax' had gone the way of the Test Card thanks to round-the-clock broadcasting but then I realised it wasn't, really.

― robster (robster), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:14 (twenty-one years ago)

cricket on ceefax is a particular pleasure. you can commentate to yourself as it tells you who is bowling to who.

― Peter Watts (peterw), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:14 (twenty-one years ago)

My dad has 'watched' entire golf tournaments via Ceefax.

I sometimes use it for Spanish footabll scores, but they only put them up for about five minutes before they change it to next week's fixtures.

I sometimes put the subtitles on, just to see, like.

We were talking about this the other night, live subtitling and that.

Are you deaf, Archel?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:16 (twenty-one years ago)

No but my mum is. We watched EVERYTHING with subtitles, I found it very odd when I watched other people's TVs and they weren't there. It was quite annoying on quiz shows though because the answer would appear on teletext before the question had even finished, sometimes.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:19 (twenty-one years ago)

It would have been better if they could have got an actual deaf person to talk about the joy of subtitles, really?

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I didn't think you were, but I did notice you looked at things more intently, for lack of a better word, than most people. I put it down to poetry.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

ILX should be customised to resemble pages from Ceefax

― teh pow! (blueski), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:25 (twenty-one years ago)

A tear for the lost Digitiser.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:27 (twenty-one years ago)

that's not Ceefax tho

― teh pow! (blueski), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

If we could get ILX to go in the colour combinations of teletext, that would rock. Pale blue and yellow on a black background, ow, mine eyes.

― Danger Whore (kate), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes! Picture threads would be immeasurably improved if the pictures were just giant blocky graphics in primary colours.

Peter: I'm not sure what that means, but I'll take it as compliment...

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Ceefax, Teletext it's all the same technology.

also

So talk about Ceefax and Teletext here!

In your face!!!!!!

hmm custom stylesheet.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Erm, what's in my face?

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:31 (twenty-one years ago)

It's certainly not meant to be unkind. I don't mean you'be got mad staring eyes or anything.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

That was to stevem.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Digitiser. Yes. What is Paul Rose doing these days?

― robster (robster), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:39 (twenty-one years ago)

It's weird though - I always look at people's mouths when they talk, instead of at their eyes or anything else, just because that's what my mum always did. I didn't even realise until recently.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Not that that's relevant to anything.

God, I used to spend loads of perfectly good hours just playing Bamboozle. I can't remember why it was so addictive now.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 09:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Digitiser. Yes. What is Paul Rose doing these days?

mr biffo has his own website where you can enjoy past glories from digi http://www.mrbiffo.com/ i think he writes the kids tv show 'my parents are aliens' as well.
subtitles rule, especially for totp and eurovision, where they translate the lyrics so you can find out what that romanian entry is about.

― zappi (joni), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:01 (twenty-one years ago)

i was in love with the reveal button!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Search: Digitiser, Ace.

Destroy: People writing letters into ITV's news service.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I can't remember why it was so addictive now.

i think it was that the man's face was so endearing

― teh pow! (blueski), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I noticed that one of the fans interviewed in that article is a current Sinisterine, incidentally.

― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh shit, so she is. I wish I hadn't called her a moron now :(

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 10:59 (twenty-one years ago)

being on sinister doesn't automatically exempt one from being a moron

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 24 September 2004 11:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh god no. However, I didn't think Gilli4n was a moran before, so it seems a little unfair of me to decide she is one because of a random out-of-context Guardian quote.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 11:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Ceefax. Thanks for reminding me, Archel.

― the bellefox, Friday, 24 September 2004 12:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Can you video Ceefax?

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 24 September 2004 13:15 (twenty-one years ago)

You can video subtitles if you have the correct equipment. Perhaps it would also allow you to video other pages. Ker-azee!

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 24 September 2004 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

a cheap tv tuner card and dscaler is a great way to view Ceefax, you can copy and paste from there.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 24 September 2004 13:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I was working for Ceefax for two years until April, when the Beeb decided to get rid of their entire freelance budget. Well, they've got legal bills to pay.

Ceefax is ace, natch. I was on the sports desk, and the amount of times I had to rewrite footy reports completely in about fifteen seconds because of late equalisers ...the worst was in my earliest days, when Tottenham blew a 3-0 halftime lead to lose 3-5 at home to Manyoo. My delirious report was, I thought, virtually complete at half-time but "Rampant Spurs blow away champions" changed to "Spurs bravely hold off champions" to "Spurs blown away by Reds comeback" or such like.

― darren (darren), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

And I'm sure there are loads of Ceefax secrets I could share - let me think of a few and I'll be back with 'em.

― darren (darren), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd like to know whether the share prices have to be typed in manually or not.

Earlier on I looked at tomorrow's Conference fixtures. Burton take on York at Eton Park in what will surely be the most emotional clash of the day, while Exeter take on the newly crap Tamworth. Meanwhile, Reading are away to Elton John's Watford and Maidenhead play host to fellow poshoes St Albans. You can park where you like in St Albans. I got that last bit of information from the boring old fashioned old telly.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:25 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm annoyed that the latest football scores are no longer on pg 303! I can not get used to 331. I like the weather section.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 24 September 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Virtually everything I can think of other than county cricket scores are updated manually. That includes the charts, all the Olympic stats and bloody motherfecking golf scores (don't I know it) amongst others.

― darren (darren), Friday, 24 September 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

are=is, of course - got to do my own subbing !

― darren (darren), Friday, 24 September 2004 20:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I assumed, wrongly, that most countries had a Ceefax equivalent. That was until I went to the US and started talking about it only to be confronted by confused looks and one person saying "such-and-such channel started it a few years back, as an experiment, but it didn't really take off".

How can you be so sure it's *that* G K1rby?

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 25 September 2004 09:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, it took me a while to realize what "Ceefax" is, in Finland we call it "Text TV". My favourite pages are the ones which advertize erotic phonelines.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 25 September 2004 09:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I mean, not because I phone to such lines, but because it's funny to see how they're advertised using the basic teletext graphics...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Saturday, 25 September 2004 09:44 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, I'd imagine that the pic must look a bit like a p0rn star made of Lego.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 25 September 2004 10:09 (twenty-one years ago)

How can you be so sure it's *that* G K1rby?

I asked her on her Livejournal, and she confirmed it was her.

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 25 September 2004 18:51 (twenty-one years ago)

There is scope for ceefax porn.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Saturday, 25 September 2004 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Anyone remember C4 music pages with Jon Homer? CLASSIC!
Uncle Frank in the 80s was classic too. Always remember the letter from the guy who thought he broke his penis as it always leaned to the left after masturbation.

― Jolly Goheavily, Saturday, 25 September 2004 23:10 (twenty-one years ago)

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