Ceefax was a British invention and the world’s first teletext information service. The following is just a very brief description of the service.

CeeFAX/teletext Turns 50 in 2024

Colin McIntyre the founding editor of the BBC’s Ceefax service – the world’s first teletext service, developed by BBC engineers who were working on ways of providing televisual subtitles for the deaf, it was the first teletext system in the world.

The system was announced in October 1972 and following test transmissions in 1972–74, the Ceefax system went live on 23 September 1974 with thirty pages of information, Colin initially updated all 24 news pages on his own, feeding punch tape into machines.

After a distinguished wartime service, McIntyre joined the BBC where he worked as a reporter in radio and television. He subsequently embarked on the achievement that would prove to be the highlight of his broadcasting career when, in 1974, he steered the Corporation’s Ceefax text service through to its first transmission. When he retired in 1982 after 30-years of service. Ceefax had a 20-strong team, it went on to attract 22 million viewers a week and inspired teletext services all around Europe.  Rather ironically, Colin passed away the same year Ceefax also ceased.

James Redmond, the BBC’s Director of Engineering at the time, was a particular enthusiast. Other broadcasters soon took up the idea, including the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), who had developed the incompatible ORACLE teletext system, at around the same time. Before the Internet and the World Wide Web become popular, Ceefax pages were often the first location to report a breaking story or headline.

In 1983, Ceefax started to broadcast computer programs, known as telesoftware, for the BBC Micro (a home computer available in the United Kingdom). The telesoftware broadcasts stopped in 1989.

The basic technology of Ceefax remained compatible with the 1976 unified rollout; system elaborations in later years were made such that earlier receivers were still able to do a basic decode of pages, but would simply ignore enhanced information rather than showing corrupted data

This is the Advert for staff to join the newly launched service

After technical negotiations, the two broadcasters settled in 1976 on a single standard, different from both Ceefax and ORACLE, which ultimately developed into World System Teletext, and which in 2012 is still in use for analogue broadcasts. The display format of 24 rows by 40 columns of characters was also adopted for the Prestel system.

The technology became the standard European teletext system and replaced other standards, including the Antiope system formerly used in France.

In 1983, Ceefax started to broadcast computer programs, known as telesoftware, for the BBC Micro (a home computer available in the United Kingdom). The telesoftware broadcasts stopped in 1989.

The service finally ended on 23 October 2012 after 38 years of broadcasting.

Early 1970’s Teletext Set Top Boxes

You don’t see many of these Labgear units about. At the heart a TIFAX XM11 module. I’m Not sure as to the exact date for this box.

Thanks to a kind donation I’ve been sent a 23 page document detailing the TIFAX XM11 module that is employed in this ColourText 7026 decoder, this is included in the Technical Library.

LabGear ColourText

Radofin TAD110

Another Teletext Adaptor, made by Radofin Electronics (UK) Ltd. Radofin are better known for their early ‘Telly Tennis’ type domestic TV games units. The unit has a 4 channel RF tuner, so could also could act as a remote control unit for TVs that didn’t have that functionality. However, it is a wired remote still in the 70’s this would have been a great advancement.

AYR (GEC) Teletext Receiver H8020 HT

GEC Radio & Television Ltd, Celta Road, Peterborough, PE2 9JB Tel 0733 47706 Telex 32237

What do we do now the analogue service has ceased?

Well using a truly wonderful device called an IMOGen you can still feed these boxes a teletext signal and have them display the data on your old vintage analogue television. Thank heavens for the designer who took the time to develop and produce the IMOGen.

To read more about the IMOGen then read here.

Some off screen shots of the Teletext service the IMOGen provides to my analogue TV network.

Home Built Signals Rack:

This includes, test card generator, BBC Cow emulator and Teletext “Live Feed” server using Rbpi. plus feed from the IMOGen 15 static TeleText pages.

Until recently, my Teletext TV’s and Teletext set-top boxes were provided pages via the IMOGen. This has been wonderful, and I’d not be without it, but my IMOGen has just 15 static pages to view. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a live Ceefax service back … well you can.

Now I’ve built a Pi and set up Vbit2, a superb implementation of Peter Kwan. Once installed, you configure the service of your choice (I chose Ceefax Worldwide) and then tell it to run at boot time.

The Pi is connected to the internet and my analogue TV signals distribution system. Now all my teletext equipped TV’s in the museum have a live teletext feed, the date and clock too, just as it used to be.

At any time, you can change the way VBIT2 behaves. You can also ‘Update services’ which will check for newer collections of pages and updates to existing ones. Some are art collections, while others are collections of popular pages from the past (such as the writings of Mr Biffo and the Bamboozle quiz games). Others are snapshots of an entire service in a moment of time. Some even dynamically update from news feeds. You just ‘Select service’ to change what is being broadcast in real time.

This is all housed in a modular rack system, with LCD monitors for all the services, see below.

Teletext TV’s

Some Teletext Boards Awaiting Sets

ITT

Thorn

Not Sure on these next two

Philips

Philips

And the one that started it all, the original TiFax decoder

My TeleText Television Collection

I have twelve teletext televisions in my collection, starting with the rare 1977 22″ Rank Arena AC6333, and end with the 1988 Ferguson FST FastText 51H3.

1977 Worlds First Integrated Teletext Receiver, Rank Arena AC6333

It will be running as a 50th anniversary project here

1976/77 Rank Arena AC6333 – Worlds First Teletext Receiver

1979 22″ Salora 1F4K

1982 22″ Ferguson 37063 Super Stereo Teletext

1983 22″ Sanyo CPT7132 Teletext

1983 16″ PYE 3157 Teletext

1984 20″ Ferguson 37493 Super Stereo Teletext

1984 “16 Sanyo CTP4132 Teletext

1986 22″ GEC McMichael 2290H Teletext

1986 20″ Panasonic TX-2122 Teletext

1988 Granadacolour C51EZ4 (Salora 20L30) Teletext

1988 Ferguson 51H3 FST FastText

The best for last, the rarely seen 1983 Philips 26CS3890/05R Teletext & Printer

The BBC Model B with Teletext Adaptor

Ex Broadcast Teletext Editing Terminal

This particular machine was in use at SKY television, it was connected via RS232 to a Teletext video generator rack mount unit. Out of this came blank video with teletext lines, which then fed a Teletext data bridge. This bridge then added further teletext live data and subtitles for the running program. This was about 30 years ago, and it was still used when they went to digital text.

The system provided by Softel is based on a BBC Master, using Sprite V software to allow the creation of teletext pages.

Finally; ex broadcast MRG systems ATP600 teletext inserter