Here's something I've put together for Teletext 50 at Cambridge Centre for Computing History this coming weekend (21/22 September 2024) a six TV display:
The teletext Teefax signal comes from a Raspberry Pi 3, it's connected to a Sony SL-C40 Betamax VCR as that seems to have the best RF output for splitting between the Baird TX10 and Pye/Philips KT3:
Three upper three TVs are all connected via composite video split from the Raspberry pi. The mid 70s National Matsushita has a dodgy tuner so it's receiving a signal injected from another Raspberry Pi Zero W directly showing Teefax from a browser. I only did this as I wanted to get at least one 1970s set on display. It's a live chassis set so the RPi is installed inside and accessed via a Bluetooth controller.
The most difficult part of this whole thing has been finding remote controls that work with these! Unfortunately a lot of universal remote controls don't have the teletext function anymore. However I've found 9Os One For All (often rebranded Total Control) remote controls work great. Unfortunately I only had the one but luckily modern One For All remote controls have a learning function so it's easy to copy over the teletext functions. The One For All remotes that B&M sell seem to be the best price.
And if you're wondering how much this all consumes:
Less than our first Plasma!
Also, there's a very clear winner of which TV gives the clearest picture and can deliver the best glitch-free teletext, the 1991 Panasonic:
However the runner up is the Pye/Philips KT3:
The absolute worst is an early 00s Bush (Beko chassis):
Flat picture and picks up interference from the other sets. Really cheap plastic too.
Made it to Cambridge. Apparently BBC Breakfast are going to be here tomorrow! (Saturday 21st September)
Just plonked everything on two tables for now. Will set up in the morning.
I have set to record the programme thanks for the heads-up. I hope all goes well and the sets behave! 😎
Rich
@slidertogrid cheers! I'm not sure if it's going to be a live broadcast or they're just recording tomorrow but we'll soon find out.
Funnily enough, Re: the sets misbehaving. The two newest sets are really prone to interference due to really poor shielding and showing corrupt teletext pages, I tried to correct this but I've been told it looks more authentic!
It's going to be on BBC Breakfast on Monday. They're still taking videos now!
There's a Birthday cake and everything! 😁
I've had one of my TVs break! The Baird TX10's sweep tuner. Didn't like the southern heat.
Apart from that the others are behaving themselves.
Nice! I’ll keep an eye out for that when it goes out! Shame the TX10 packed up, I always thought those things were indestructible!
@lloyd the sweep tuner is a bit of a weak spot on this one as it had a Varta back up battery and you can pretty much guess what happened there! I did spend ages cleaning it and repairing the broken PCB tracks but it clearly needs further work.
Interesting shot of Level 1 vs Level 2.5 teletext:
Looks very good! 😎 I have set the recorder. Those back up batteries were a PITA! A good earner back in the day though. I must have replaced thousands. The Pye Philips ones were no better !
@slidertogrid yeah, as I'm also into old computers I'm more than familiar with back up batteries (particularly Vartas) damaging boards!
The TVs were well received it seems. The amount of people who rented a Baird just like that from Radio Rentals back in the day was huge! Just a shame that it was the one set that broke.
@wayned R.R must have rented tens of thousands of that model of Baird TX10 Text. They were dong the rounds after they were sold off for years. This is the model that Semple service used for the Tristar "The worlds first recycled TV". ISTR there was two versions one had just a search tune button and the other had search and channel up/down. So if the handset packed up the user was pretty stuck! The Tristar sets all used the PIL CRT which was a re-gun. The original Videocolor ones didn't last well. I don't know why Thorn produced some PIL and some 30AX maybe supply was an issue?
Here's the BBC Breakfast clip, that was a tiny amount of the whole weekend! We actually sung Happy Birthday when the cake was presented too:
Thanks for posting this a very interesting clip. Teletext helped to sell many sets I'm sure, people upgraded to txt and it provided sales and of course a much needed supply of used sets for resale. Interesting to see teletext on a Ferguson 9000? The first text Thorn sets I saw was the TX9/10.
@slidertogrid there is a story behind Peter Purvis and that clip of him on Blue Peter demonstrating Ceefax, but I'll leave that for Mort Smith himself to explain as it's in the forthcoming Teletext Sofa Club episode.
I presume a lot of the sets (certainly in the early clips) had an external box for receiving teletext. I think the earliest set I've seen in the wild with teletext built-in was a Pye/Philips G11.
And of course not forgetting our very own @crustytv with the prototype Rank Arena! I think 1977 seems to have been the beginning of sets designed to have built-in decoder boards.
@wayned Yes I think the first production sets I saw with built in teletext were G11s with ultrasonic remote. They weren't that common probably due to the price. Then early TX10s but by then the remote was infra red and 30AX Tube. I did see a couple of ITT CVC30s with Txt, they were very much like Chris's Rank set with big bulky panels added to the chassis which made servicing access difficult. Again Ultrasonic remote.
I saw a G8 which I suppose was a prototype at a local dealer in I think the mid to late '70's but it wasn't available for sale it was just there as a demo set, it had a wired keyboard. To be honest I didn't pay it a lot of attention as I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at the time!
I think the first Teletext set I saw was an ITT, probably 1977. There were difficult to sell due to the price and customers not knowing what they were. Even up to 1980/81 when I left the trade they were still expensive and for us slow to move either sale or rent.
Must have been price reductions through the 1980’s that saw the boom, even in 1984 when we bought a new set it was still an option for non teletext sets.
Teletext components improved and brought Fast text and reduced prices etc which made the the sets easier to use and affordable.
Frank
@slidertogrid judging by a lot of the stories particularly from the 70s regarding the general attitudes towards teletext a lot of people thought it was a gimmick. I didn't even know it existed until my Mother started renting a TX10 from DER.
That's another thing! So at Cambridge I was starting to feel major imposter syndrome as there's these pioneers of teletext wandering around as well as these people who are running their own teletext servers, recovering teletext from VHS tape etc and there's me and all I've done is bring some old tellies in and hooked them up to a teletext server via Raspberry Pi. But then Mort Smith walks over to the Baird and says: "Ah yes! Great to see one of these again. We rented this exact model from Radio Rentals when we came back to the UK!"
He'd been in America running Keyfax:
Unfortunately some git called Rupert Murdoch bought WFLD and he also decided that Keyfax was just a gimmick.
Excellent work Wayne.
