A few years ago we saw the 50th anniversary of the colour TV service launching in the UK, already that's seven years ago, the march of time is relentless. I remember at the time thinking there was very little about it in the media, I guess being a TV history nerd is not widespread. 😉
Well, here we go again, It's September and fifty years ago on the 23rd of September 1974, BBC launched the Ceefax Teletext service, ceasing 12-years ago in on 23rd October 2012. I wonder if its 50th anniversary will get any coverage later this month.
A wonderful service that many of us enjoyed and miss. Thankfully for me, it's as if it never went away as I built the Raspberry Pi set up with Vbit2, a superb implementation from 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. Now all my teletext equipped TV’s in the museum have a live teletext feed, just as it used to be.
If you fancy taking a trip down Teletext memory lane, I've lumped together something here, sets, set-top boxes, boards, TVs and brochures.
https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/ceefax-teletext/
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I knew it was the middle 70’s when it all started and the incompatible BBC and IBA systems but exact dates are for me lost in time. We sold/rented very few Teletext sets in the 70’s, they were expensive and many didn’t see the need. It was perhaps the early 1980’s before prices came down, usability improved, I.e FastText etc.
One component in the IF Strip made manufacturer and reception much easier was the SWAF, Surface Wave Acoustic Filter if I remember its name correctly. This made the IF strip much easier to design, less components and kept the Group Delay consistent through the stage, important for colour but much more critical for data. The other improvements came with better designed Teletext chip sets as the makers built on earlier designs.
We sold a few Prestel sets to business but this was not a great money earner for us but it got me a training course on Prestel at the ITT plant in Farnworth near Bolton. One notable difference between Teletext and Prestel was its speed with its 1200/300 baud modem and its connection to the computers at BT but of course the content was business oriented not consumer.
Thanks for an interesting post Chris, many memories there. 👍
Frank
Yes an interesting article Chris. I had forgotten Teletext started so early on. Ultrasonic remote G11s were the first sets I saw in any number with Text. But they weren't exactly common. In fact a lot of sets were standard without even remote control well into the 30AX era. I can remember a lot of standard K35s and TX100s. Text was a real luxury and as your article mentions a lot of people couldn't see the point of the extra expense.
@crustytv Don't forget about the internal BBC service "Presfax", this lasted until early 2018 when a new system was introduced which did not use VBI. I wish I had salvaged the rack mount decoders used in Cardiff. They were partly a BBC design but based on a system used in bookies shops, which would distribute racing results on the VBI of their vision feeds from the races. The decoders produced an SDI output which could be easily distributed to any monitors required.
The 50th anniversary of CEEFAX is covered on this World Service broadcast:
Ceefax: the start of interactive television
Some screenshots taken before the analogue switch off in the North West.
